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No. 12 


25 Cts. 



Copyright, 1885, 
by Harpkii A Brothers 


July" 3 , 1885 


Subscription Price 
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51 Nonel 


Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most nsefid, after all 

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NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

1885 


HARPER’S HANDY SERIES. 


Messrs. IIaeper & Brothers beg leave to announce 
that they have begun the issue of a new series of publi- 
cations, to be called Harper’s Handy Series, which is 
intended to supply the best current literature in a form 
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The Series will be issued weekly, and will include in- 
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ries will be made with great care, and witli scrujiulous 
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to exclude from it all works unsuitable for family 
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The volumes in Harper’s Handy Series will be 
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twenty-five cents each. 


Vohimes of HARPER’S HANDY SERIES already issued. 

NO CENTS 

1. That Terrible Man. A Novel, By \V. E. Norris 26 

2. Society in London. By A Foreign Resident 26 

3. Mignon ; OR, Bootles’s Baby. A Novel. By J. S. Winter. Ill’d. 26 

4. Louisa. A Novel. By K. S. M.Tcquoid. Vol. 1 26 

6. Louisa, A Novel. By K, S. Macquoid. Vol. II 25 

6. Home Letters, By the Late Earl of Beaconsfield, Illustrated. , 26 

7. How TO Play Whist. By “Five of Clubs” (R. A, Proctor). . , 25 

8. Mr. Butler’s Ward. A Novel. By F. Mabel Robinson 25 

9. John Needham’s Double. A Novel. By Joseph Hatton ..... 26 

10. The Mahdi. By James Darraesteter. With Portraits,. . 26 

11. The World of London. By Count Vasili 25 

12. The Waters of Hercules. A Novel 26 

Other volumes in 'preparation. 


Harper & Brothers xeill send any of the above works by mail, postage pre- 
paid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


K' 


■' .1 




THE LEGEND. 

He obeyed the war-trumpet which echoed throughout the Roman 
Empire. He went forth to fight under the Eagle of the mighty 
Trajan. His young wife, who had been his for scarcely three moons, 
hung once more on his arm. He kissed the mute lips which did not 
trust themselves to speak. Trajan called, and he must follow, but 
she should be safe. He would send her to the far-distant province 
by the Danube, where the wild Dacians had long since bowed before 
Trajan’s victorious sword. A trusty escort should guide her to that 
peaceful valley; the sweet society of her friends, the noble ladies 
Flavia and Lavinia, should help to cheer her; the sacred waters of 
Hercules should give back the roses which had faded from her 
cheek. 

He kissed her lips, and taking from his neck a sacred chain of gold, 
he whispered, “Keep it, and never forget that thou art my wife.” 

Once more the Roman Eagle triumphed. Flushed with victory 
and crowned with laurels, the young general hastened to that distant 
province by the Danube. Had she guarded the mystic chain as he 
had bid her? The “aquae Herculi sacrae” — had they rekindled the 
beams of her eyes? Did the roses bloom again on her cheek? Yes, 
the roses bloomed again ; he saw that from afar. He saw her smil- 
ing, radiant, her friends beside her, and — some one else. Was not 
that fair-haired stripling the puny Aurelius Crispinus, whose arm 
liad been too weak to fight for Rome? Was that smile, so heavenly 
sweet, for yonder boy? 

A devil clutched the warrior’s heart; his fingers felt for his sword- 
hilt. Venomous tongues spoke to him; they whispered that she had 
been false. 

He watched from afar; he saw her leave the spot; he saw the strip- 
ling bend over something in his hand; and still watching, he followed 
step by step. A gold line glittered on the youth’s neck; the warrior’s 
eagle eye caught the shine; it was the sacred chain, the chain which 
was to have been the token of her fidelity; and now that white-faced 
boy was mumbling over the dishonored pledge. 

They must both die; but the blood should never stain his sword. 
He knew the man who would do any deed for the love of heavy gold; 

1 


2 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


that man should do this deed. A wild cavern in the rocks was the 
ruffian’s abode. The warrior sought it and spoke : 

He. Dost thou know a grave so deep that it will tell no tales? 

Brigand. Master, I do. 

He. A plaee whenee the dead cannot return to trouble me? 

Brig. Even so, I know the place. 

He. A woman must sleep in that grave to-night; but neither word 
nor step must I hear. Here, take this purse. 

Brig. Name me the woman. 

He. My wife. 

The valley slept. The young wife softly slumbered on her coueh; 
but a dark rude hand has touched her arm. 

What is this massive muffled figure that confronts her? Her eyes, 
as death, flash for one moment. 

“ Follow me, lady; I have come for thee.” 

“Follow thee? By whose order?” 

“ Thy lord’s.” 

“Dost thou take me to him? Then will I follow thee gladly.” 

The way was long and steep; rough with rocks and sharp with 
brambles. Trees on all sides threatening her with their arms; thorns 
which caught her silken hair; stones which cut her tender feet. 

“ Kind man, let me rest a while; see, my sandals are rent.” 

“Nay, thou shalt rest presently, and deeply too. The end of thy 
journey is at hand.” 

“Good man, is it here I will find my lord?” 

She stood still with a shriek. What was this black abyss, blacker 
than the night around her, which yawned at her feet? Whence came 
this hideous gaping void? 

“ What is it?” the woman asked, trembling. 

“It is thy gi'ave.” 

They were alone, the woman and the man, and the vast forest was 
around them. No human ear could hear her shriek, no human cjq 
could see her death. Shame on the trees which nodded to each 
other over the murderer’s head; shame on the breeze which wffiis- 
pered the black secret through the forest ; shame on the golden stars, 
oh, shame on them, not to hide their twinkling eyes from the sight 
of so foul a deed ! The eagle started from its nest at the sound of 
that shriek, and circled flapping through the darkness ; the lynx-eyed 
cat, listening, dropped her prey, then rose and fled swift-footed to 
the inmost fastnesses of her rocky den. 

The guiltless wife had not yet ceased to breathe when the husband 
had learned his error. Before his mighty sword the stripling sank to 
the ground, but with his last breath he whispered the truth. Aure- 
lius had loved her, but she was innocent; that chain was no love- 
token from her; he had stolen it from her as she dropped it going to 
the bath. 

“Cruel man, she loved no one but thee.” 

Wildly did the warrior press up the hill-side to find that deep grave 
which could tell no talcs. That grave should be his grave, if he were 
too late. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


3 


The valley awoke, and the portals of the baths stood open. The 
sacred Hercules Waters bubble boiling from the rock, and are caught 
in marble basins to be the health of thousands. The priests are offer- 
ing their morning sacrifice to the god Hercules sanctus augustus in- 
rictus salutifer. Fair ladies enter the baths, or stroll along the tessel- 
lated pavement. 

The noble ladies Flavia and Lavinia walk with linked arms. 

Larinia. How has the sweet Flavia rested? 

Flavia. But poorly. The fate of my beloved friend robbed my 
couch of all its softness. It is the common talk of the valley. I 
shall never be consoled. Wilt thou? 

Lav, Never. Ah, she was beautiful! How red were her lips! 

Fla. And how shapely were her arms ! But didst thou never think 
that her hair was too black? 

Lav. Now that I reflect, I think it was too black. 

Fla. And her eyes too large? 

Lav. How justly thou speakest! And, sweet Flavia, what say’st 
thou of her skin? 

Fla. Any suckling could see that it was over- white. She had not 
thy roses, Lavinia. 

Lav. Nor had she thy noble stature, sweet Flavia; her figure had 
not the pleasing roundness of thine. 

Fla. Nor seems it to me that her lips were so — very red. 

Lav. Nor her arms so very shapely. 

Fla. Now that I call back her face to mind, I cannot say that she 
was beautiful. 

Lav. We shall be friends forever, my Flavia! 

[They embrace; then stand looking down at the rolling Djernis 
river. 

Lav. They say she was innocent. 

Fla. They say so. 

Lav. Even now the high -priest waits to implore the gods with 
sacrifice that they should pardon her cruel bloodshed. 

Fla. The high-priest has a tender heart. He is ever compassion- 
ate to the erring. 

Lav. Didst thou say— erring? 

Fla. I was but speaking my thought. ^ 

Lav. Tell me thy thought, sweet Flavia. 

Fla. It came to my mind that we unhappily hold no proof of her 
innocence. Aurelius had a fair face. 

Lav. Methinks her lord was of nobler gait. 

Fla. The man who is nearest is always the comeliest to a— pleas- 
ure-loving woman ; we will not say more than a pleasure -loving 
woman, Lavinia. 

Imv. Oh, wise Flavia! oh, far-seeing Flavia! Yes, she deserved 
to die. But hush ! let us speak softly. 

Fla. and Lav. [in one hreatJi]. No word of ours shall taint her 
memory. 


4 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Lav. What if I wliispered the truth to young Sabina? She is a 
discreet matron. 

Fla. And I have no secrets from Lucrezia; we are as sisters to 
each other. 

[The noble ladies have reached the entrance of the sacred temple. 
They pause on the steps to adjust the folds of their trailing gar- 
ments. To the left of the temple the wooded bank slopes up- 
ward, dark green against the clear blue sky; from below on 
the right comes the sound of rushing water, for there the Djer- 
nis tosses moaning over its stony bed.^ 

Lav. When last we stood here, she was by our side. Canst thou 
tell me if my palla falls smoothly? 

Fla. As smooth as moonbeams on a lake. And mine? 

Lav. Thou art draped like a goddess in the clouds. Say, is it not 
pitiful that she had to die so cruel a death ? 

Fla. Truly; but the pity is greater that he should have thrown 
himself after her. He was a well-favored man. 

Lav. [looking into the steel mirror which hangs by her side']. He 
might have known that there are many more comely women in the 
world. But hark! the voice of the flutes invites us to the temple. 

Fla. Come, let us sacrifice to the immortal gods! [Exit. 

THE PROLOGUE. 

When Alexius Damianovics de Draskocs, sometimes known as 
Count Damianovics de Draskocs, died, he left his widow and two 
children under the care of his brother Josika. Josika had long 
waited for this opportunity. Some fifteen years previously Alexius 
had taken possession of the paternal estate, merely on the ground 
of being the nearest to the spot, for no will was forth-coming; and 
indeed, in the lower Danubian provinces of Austria, where these cir- 
cumstances occurred, wills were rarely heard of, and everything was 
settled by the right of might. Josika, who in his father’s lifetime 
had already spent considerable sums of money, made no objection 
when Alexius took possession of the estate; he merely said to him- 
self, “I have a long life before me; I can wait.” 

Scarcely twelve months were passed since Alexius’s death when 
Josika’s waiting was crowned, and he had virtually become master 
of Draskocs. He had begun by proposing to the widow, who re- 
fused him ; and had ended by boldly declaring that he had as good 
a right to the estate as Alexius had ever had. This resulted in much 
indignation and tears on the part of Eleonore, the widow ; and final- 
ly, in her abrupt flight to Pesth, whence she threatened Josika with 
the terrible word “Justice!” 

Twenty-two years passed, and the lawsuit begun by the furious 
Eleonore still trailed its slow length along. “ I have a long life be- 
fore me,” was Josika’s set formula: “I can wait. I hope to sur- 
vive the end of the lawsuit.” 

Meanwhile the widowed countess experienced another heavy blow. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


5 


Her son Alexius, who betrayed a weakness for alcohol, had been 
placed in the hands of a 3’^oiing German tutor, named Adalbert 
Mohr. The widow’s daughter, Ascelinde, being then an impulsive 
creature of twenty-nine, lost her heart to the tutor, and told him so, 
or “betrayed her feelings” in an unguarded moment. Adalbert 
really admired her; and what between that and surprise, he took 
the bait. The engagement was kept secret, but Eleonore had sus- 
picions, and lost no time in sending off tutor and pupil on a holiday 
tour. The choice of locality had been left to Adalbert, and he glad- 
ly seized this opportunity of visiting a spot which he had long wished 
to see. This was a romantic valley on the southern confines of Hun- 
gary, which, though possessing strong sulphur-springs, was little 
known and rarely visited. Historical research happened to be Adal- 
bert Mohr’s pet form of study, and this wild spot was known to har- 
bor fragments of great antiquity. Eagerly he set to work, forgetful 
of his pupil. His enthusiasm grew daily. 

“I have at last,” he wrote to Ascelinde in the second week of his 
stay, “come upon the track of that curious place called Oaura Dra- 
cului, which the peasants of the valley speak of with dread. I shall 
devote my last fortnight to the search, for I have a theory that some 
interesting discoveries might be made on the spot; but not one of 
the peasants will act as guide. ” 

A few days after the date of this letter, Adalbert was standing 
beside a giant beech-tree high up among the hills. He had found 
the spot he sought, but darkness was close at hand, and he must 
hurry home. “To-morrow I shall return,” he said to himself, while 
with his penknife he cut three crosses in the beech-stem, which was 
to serve as sign-post, “ and I shall brin^ torches and ropes.” 

But his plan for the morrow remained unrealized. That same 
evening a letter from Ascelinde recalled him in frantic haste. There 
had been discovery and family scenes, after which Ascelinde had left 
her mother’s house, or, more properly speaking, had been turned out 
of it. 

A few words sum up the rest. Adalbert and Ascelinde were mar- 
ried, and soon began to find thorns among their roses. Two years 
later Ascelinde was summoned to her mother’s death-bed, and went 
to receive her parent’s last blessing— or curse, she hardly knew which 
to expect. It turned out to be a blessing, but in a conditional shape. 
She was to be forgiven if henceforward she would devote herself 
to fighting the Draskocs’ battle for her brother Alexius, who was too 
apathetic to fight for himself. Through her tears Ascelinde assented ; 
her heart had clung secretly to “the family cause” all along. 

“You have made a fatal mistake in life,” murmured the countess, 
“and you must redeem it.” 

“Yes, a fatal mistake; I confess it,” sobbed the daughter, “and 
I will redeem it!” 

A fatal mistake 1 And this after barely two years of married life. 
Alas that love should be woven of so ephemeral a tissue 1 


6 


THE WATEPwS OF HERCULES. 


CHAPTER I. 

KATZEN JAMMER. 

“C’est nue ^trauge affaire qu’nne demoiselle.”— Moli6eb. 

If you look in the German-and-English dictionary for the trans- 
lation of the word Katzenjammer, you will he startled to find it de- 
fined as “an indisposition in consequence of intoxication.” 

The definition is correct, and yet many victims of this complaint 
do not as much as know the taste of wine. Ask the fine ladies who 
shudder at the mere approach of Bacchus, what complaint it is which 
stretches them on their soft sofas and opens their lips to innumerable 
yawns, and, if they are Germans, they will answer you Katzenjam- 
mer. The truth is, that not wine alone intoxicates. Pleasure can in- 
toxicate, passion can inebriate, success can make you quite as drunk 
as champagne. The waking from these several stages of delights will 
bring the same result — Katzenjammer. In English you would call it 
reaction ; but whole pages of English cannot express the sick, empty, 
weary, vacant feeling which is so concisely contained within these 
four German syllables. This disease is, at certain seasons, apt to 
become epidemic; but Ash -Wednesday in Catholic countries is the 
day on which it reaches its climax. On that dreary day — whose 
first stroke is the knell of dissipation and pleasure, warning us to 
stop amusing ourselves and to begin undoing all the mischief which 
the Carnival has done — that sickly spectre Katzenjammer creeps into 
many a gilded drawing-room, and slinks into many a fair lady’s 
bower. 

On the Ash -Wednesday of which I write, the sickly spectre was 
. making his round of the town in search of victims. He stole in by 
every door, and slipped in by every window, exactly as it pleased 
him; and he came, among others, to an apartment which seemed to 
please him unusually well, and to a victim whose torment afforded 
him a special enjoyment. 

The spectre waved his wand, and the comfortable room looked 
dreary, the well -filled book -shelves became oppressive, the solid 
chairs appeared clumsy, the dark-green window-curtains gloomy. 
Never had rain-drops run so dismally down the pane, never had the 
clock ticked so monotonously, never had the mirror thrown back 
so pale a reflection of the victim’s face as it did on this Ash -Wed- 
nesday afternoon. 

It was at the writing-table that the sufferer had at last taken ref- 
uge from her tormentor; and as she sat there in the shadow of the 
green curtain, with her eyes fixed on the paper before her, and with 
a somewhat Tveary droop of her fair head, she looked so like a piece 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


7 


of exquisite fragility that it was a wonder the tormenting spectre 
took no pity on his victim. 

This very fragility made her beauty peculiar, though by no means 
faultless. _ She was too slight in figure to be called handsome, too 
irregular in feature to be called classical, too faint in coloring to be 
called brilliant ; yet this graceful girl, with the faintest bloom on 
her cheek, with the fairest of hair lying on her forehead like a cloud 
of feathery gold, had never been denied the supreme right of beauty. 

The complexion was of a flawless transparency; the eyelashes so 
long and thick that they threw a distinct shade on the cheek, and 
fringed her eyes so heavily as to leave them in a sort of mysterious 
darkness. It wanted but the uplifting of those downcast eyes — 
blue, dreamy eyes, they surely must be — to complete the whole of 
the picture consistently. She looked like a figure stepped straight 
out of an old-fashioned poem. 

As yet the fringe remained obstinately lowered, and the eyes fixed 
steadily on the open page before her. That page belonged to a 
leather-bound, gilt-edged book — just such a volume as young ladies 
love to cherish as the confidant of their secret inspirations. The 
broken lines upon the paper looked most curiously, most suspicious- 
ly, like verses; and the way in which her white fingers counted out 
little raps upon the table, might have made«one think of a measure 
that w'ould not fit, or a stanza that would not scan; and when she 
now and then paused frowning, and bit the tip of her penholder 
with her pearly teeth, any spectator would have been irresistibly re- 
minded of a poetess brought up for want of a rhyme. 

At length she threw down the pen, and rose. 

‘ ‘ Impossible !” she said, aloud. 

What was impossible? Wo'dd Thrdne not rhyme satisfactorily 
with grdiiief Or was Schmerzeii too commonplace to be coupled 
with Herzen ? 

“Impossible, ’’she repeated. “Impossible to be quite happy un- 
der twenty thousand florins a 5’’ear,” and she raised her eyes at last. 
There was no one in the room to meet her gaze, no one to be sur- 
prised at the revelation it afforded. For, after all, they were not 
blue, those eyes, they were not dreamy; there was no touch of the 
muse in them. They were of a brilliant gray; keen, quick eyes, 
very wide-awake and very direct in their gaze. It seemed almost 
as if nature had here been guilty of an anachronism; for this girl’s 
eyes were distinctly and characteristically nineteenth-century eyes, 
while the fragrance of old-world poesy which seemed to linger about 
her features, and the floating grace of her movements, belonged 
rather to the ideal of an age long passed. “I have calculated it ev- 
ery way,” she remarked, still aloud, closing her leather-bound book 
with care, “ and twenty thousand is the very lowest figure possible in 
order to — ” She broke off, for the door opened just then, and two 
letters were placed in her hand. 

Her face fell as she opened the first; it was the bill for the wreath 
of apple-blossoms which she had worn last night, at the last ball of 
the Carnival. Eight florins, which had seemed so cheap for the 


8 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


fresh, crisp flowers in the shop, looked quite out of proportion now 
that the. petals hung limp and lifeless, and the pleasure w’as behind 
her. leather despondently she crushed up the envelope and opened 
the second letter. “From Belita,” she pronounced, as she took the 
sheet to the window to read it. 

Belita was this girl’s one solitary great friend. If she was not 
quite the Herzensf reundin, almost indispensable to German girlhood, 
and who has the right to share all thoughts and feelings, she was at 
least the nearest approach to such a confidante that the other had 
ever known. They had been for some years together in a private 
school, whither the Italian girl had been sent to acquire the northern 
tongue, and where circumstances, as well as a certain sympathy in 
some of their ideas, had thrown them very much upon each other’s 
society. 

“ Carissima INIargheihta, — I will risk the possibility of crushing 
my lace ruffles ; I will even risk making ink-spots upon my pale 
green silk before the corso, and all this in order that you may be tlie 
first to hear my news. Margherita, it is all settled: I am going to 
be married. You are surprised? Eh certo, I am as much surprised 
myself. Two days ago the matter was decided— me, of course, 
and not hy me. How much more satisfactory is our custom than 
yours! You Germans would take several months to decide what is 
settled by our good parents in a few hours; and after all, the result 
is the same. I was sent for and told my fate ; and before my moth- 
er had done speaking, I had, w ith my usual presence of mind, real- 
ized my position, and resolved to present the two new muslins I had 
just ordered to my younger sister. The ej^es of a married woman 
must be directed towards higher things than muslins. I want your 
advice on a weighty point— my toilet for the 30th, the day the con- 
tralto is to be signed. Blue or lilac? is the question which pursues 
me day and night. Yellow is too lively, not enough recueilli for the 
occasion; and pink I have been obliged to discard, for I have not 
got your adorable complexion. It must be elegant, and yet not 
too xoyant; it must be rich, but not heavy; it must soar above the 
simplicity of a girl’s dress, and yet not attain the elaboration of a 
toilette de jeuiu femme. A judicious compromise betw^een all these 
qualities, and a happy mixture of the maiden and the matron, are 
what is requisite. Added to all this, it must not cost much money. 
For a little time more I shall require to continue nw economy ; but 
the mystic words at the altar -foot once spoken, I shall be trans- 
formed into a rich contessa— and such a rich one, Margherita! No 
more dresses to be turned, no more trimmings to be scrimped, every 
fashion-paper reve. I must stop, the'earriage is at the door. No, 
I have a moment’s respite. Mamma is gone to change her velvet 
mantle ; she is afraid of the pelting of the confetti. I tremble for 
my green silk; but, hasta! I am wasting my time. Margherita, do 
you remember our words of parting? how we two poor penniless 
girls swore to each other that we w'ould make our fortune in the 
world? that we would fall into no such mistake as that which your 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


9 


parents have made? It was in August we spoke thus; it is March 
now, and my fortune is made. And yours? It may take you a lit- 
tle longer, for you have the disadvantage of having to choose for 
yourself; but answer me truly: what has your first Carnival brought 
you? I am curious, but I am not uneasy; for, thank Heaven, you 
are not one of those silly, sentimental, romantic girls, so frequent 
among your countrywomen, and who never fail to fall in love with 
the wrong people. That same clear little head which enabled you 
to carry off the prix de logique at school will help you to take a prize 
in the world as well, and a very big prize it will be. I hear my 
mother coming— good-bye ; but now, on glancing through my letter, 
I perceive an omission — I have not mentioned my future husband’s 
name. It is Conte Luigi Francopazzi, distantly related to me on my 
mother’s side. He is young, good-looking, and I have no objection 
to make to him, except — except — Margherita, I can have no secrets 
from you ; there is no use blinding myself to the fact — he is not tall 
enough for me. Not that he is a very small man, either, but you 
know my unfortunate height. This is all the harder, as throughout 
life I have noticed that a tall husband makes a better background; 
but I console myself with the reflection that low coiffures are com- 
ing into fashion ; and I have secretly vowed that nothing but tall 
hats shall find their way on to his head. 

“Now I am off. Do not expect another letter just now; for to- 
morrow I enter on the delights and agonies of the trousseau. 

“Your devoted friend, 

“Belita Pegrelli.” 

The perusal of this letter was scarcely completed when the door 
opened once more, and a middle-aged gentleman appeared on the 
scene. This middle-aged gentleman was Adalbert Mohr. 

The last twenty years had slowly changed Adalbert from a slim, 
clear-eyed student to a mature man, w^hose glance had gained in 
shrewdness and lost nothing in vivacity. His active habits had 
saved him from that heaviness of appearance and manner with 
which almost every German on the verge of fifty is beset. His light 
hair was only sparsely sprinkled with gray; and his bearing was as 
straight and easy now as it had been at thirty. 

“Papa,” began his daughter, without the smallest preliminary, 
“Belita has made her fortune.” 

“Her fortune!” repeated Herr Mohr, somewhat staggered at this 
abruptness. ‘ ‘ Has she struck a gold-mine? or invented a new steam- 
engine?” 

“No; she is going to marry a rich man.” 

“Ah!” said Adalbert, “I comprehend;” and he sat down on the 
chair beside him. He was holding his hat in one hand and his um- 
brella in the other; he twirled the umbrella between his fingers, and 
looked at his daughter with a glance that was both curious and a 
little uneasy. He appeared altogether like a man who is in a hurry 
to be gone, and yet has something to say which he hesitates how to 
put forward. 


10 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“And so, Gretclien, Belita lias made her fortune, has she?” 

“Yes; and now I mean to make mine.” 

“ And in the same way?” asked Adalbert, again rather staggered. 

“ In exactly the same way.” 

Gretclien left the window, and calmly took a chair straight oppo- 
site her parent. She had announced her intention of making her 
fortune in a tone as matter-of-fact as if she had been announcing 
her intention of making a pudding. 

Adalbert began to laugh. “ Many a young lady has started with 
that same idea, Gretchen, and has ended by eating bread and cheese 
in a garret, and darning her husband’s stockings by the light of a 
tallow-candle. ” 

Gretchen gave a sniff of her fine-cut nostrils. 

“Stockings and tallow-candles, indeed! Of course I know that 
there are lots of foolish and romantic girls in the world ; but what 
are they there for, unless that sensible girls should profit by their ex- 
perience?” 

“ No man has ever grown wise through another man’s experience, 
and no woman either. ” 

“Then why should I not be the first woman who does?” 

“How young you are, child; and how much more foolish than 
you think!” 

“ Young!” repeated Gretchen, with an accent of the most supreme, 
the most delicate scorn in her clear voice. “ Why, I am eighteen 
and nine months ; in a year and a quarter I shall be out of my teens. 
When a woman is out of her teens her first youth is passed ; there- 
fore it stands to reason that in fifteen months my first youth will be 
passed.” 

Adalbert laughed out loud. 

“ What are you laughing at, papa?” 

“ At my dogmatical daughter, whose confidence in life I am try- 
ing in vain to shake.” 

“ I wish you would stop; I have said nothing ridiculous. What 
has age got to do with it, after all, when you look at it from a logical 
point of view ? Some people are born sensible, and others die foolish. 
It cannot make any difference whether one is nineteen or twenty- 
nine or thirty-nine; and it is only a stupid old prejudice to say that 
because a woman happens to be young and — ” 

“Pretty,” completed Adalbert, with a mischievous smile. 

“Pretty,” repeated Gretchen, steadily— “ that because a woman 
happens to be young and pretty, she must necessarily also be foolish. 
If you insist on the number of years, I am only eighteen, but much, 
much older in experience — ” 

“ Of the world and its wicked ways,” finished Adalbert. 

“Laugh if you like, papa; I know what I am talking about. I 
have been out a whole season, without counting the two dancing- 
parties last year; and I have been to fourteen balls— five public and 
nine private.” 

“Accurate, Gretchen — always accurate,” put in her father; “you 
were born a master of the exact sciences.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


11 


“ I have watched other girls, ’’continued the daughter, unheeding, 
“ and the way they go on ; and I have danced and talked and lis- 
tened, and made acquaintance with dozens — ^just simply dozens, of 
men — ” 

“And broken dozens, simply dozens, of hearts — ” 

“Nonsense, papal hearts do not break.” 

“ Well, I am bound to say that they make everything unbreakable 
nowadays, even china; that comes from living in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. And yet — and yet — ” Adalbert twirled his umbrella rather 
nervously, and looked with anxiety at his daughter — “ and yet, even 
in this century I think there are a few hearts still left which might 
break in the old-fashioned manner. What should you say, Gret- 
chen, if you were to have an opportunity of testing the solidity of a 
nineteenth-century heart — an early opportunity, Gretchen?” 

“ Papa, I do not understand you,” said Gretchen, with a stare and 
a sudden flush. “What — what do you mean? and where are you 
going to?” 

For Adalbert had risen now, and was buttoning his great-coat in 
a hurry. Gretchen rose likewise, and stood gazing at her father, 
while a sort of vague excitement began taking possession of her 
mind. 

‘ ‘ Where am I going to ? Did I not tell you ? To the Frauenkirclie, 
to examine that old vault they have come upon. They want my 
opinion about some of the half -obliterated inscriptions on the tombs.” 

Gretchen was accustomed to these expeditions of her father’s ; for 
Herr Mohr had long since become an authority in matters of his- 
torical research. His name was honorably known far beyond the 
limits of Schleppenheim, the provincial German town in which he 
had settled. He had worked hard, but he had not worked in vain ; 
and though, since his marriage and the births of the son and daugh- 
ter with whom Providence had blessed him, he had not been able to 
indulge his passion for travel and active exploration, yet he had 
succeeded in realizing that comfortable independence for himself 
and his family which once had seemed to lie so far out of reach. 

“Yes, papa, the vault, I understand,” said Gretchen, with a rather 
palpitating heart; “but— and— You were going to say something 
else?” 

“ Only that I think it not improbable that during my absence you 
should have a visitor.” 

“A visitor, on Ash- Wednesday?” repeated Gretchen, somewhat 
mockingly. “That is not likely, papa.” 

“But if I happen to know that this unlikely thing is a fact?” 

“ Happen to know!” she echoed, scornfully. 

“Well, I was told so.” 

“By-” ‘ 

“By the person himself.” 

“//mself!” repeated Gretchen, significantly. She stood close to 
her father— her eyes were devouring his face. “Papa,” she said, 
suddenly, clutching at his arm, “ who is it?” 

“Nonsense, Gretchen,” laughed Adalbert. “ I know nothing. Let 


12 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


me go. I am in a hurry: they arc all waiting for me in that vault. 
Where are my gloves? Let me go.” 

But the gray eyes were still fixed on his face, and the fragile 
white hand was still on his sleeve; and fragile though it appeared, 
its grasp was surprisingly firm. It might look like a snow-flake, but 
it was not to be shaken off like one. 

“ Who is it?” was all she said. 

“Gretchen, you will be the ruin of that vault; let me go. Don’t 
pretend that you cannot guess his name.” And with an unex- 
pected movement Herr Mohr freed himself and escaped through 
the door, remarking, as he reached it, “1 shall be back again in 
two hours.” 

“Who is it?” called out the disconcerted Gretchen; but she only 
heard her father laughing to himself half-way down the staircase. 

Once more left solitary, Gretchen looked slowly round her, and to 
her astonishment she perceived that everything was changed. The 
book-shelves were not oppressive, the green curtains were not gloomy, 
there was a quite surprising variety in the tick of the clock; the tor- 
menting spectre was laid at last. 

Gretchen’s form of Katzenjammer had been severe, but it had been 
a different species of the malady from that which usually attacks 
young ladies of eighteen. She did not regret the Carnival for the 
Carnival’s sake, nor sigh over the dancing and gas-light because she 
liked dancing and gas-light ; she never looked at them otherwise 
than as means which might help her to reach an end. The Carnival 
was a campaign on whose battle-fields she had hoped to win a vic- 
tory. If she had felt dull and dispirited it was because this campaign 
was over, the next so far in the future, and the victory not gained — 
or so it had appeared. But now — her father’s words — his smile — 
the visitor who was to come — oh, there could be no doubt that the 
victory was won and her happiness secured. 

With regard to this vast word happiness, Gretchen’s ideas might 
have been worth analyzing. In her opinion it was a question of 
arithmetic. Since there existed laws for measuring the distance of 
sun, moon, and stars — since there were rules for w’^eighing the earth 
and determining the compounds of chemicals — she saw no reason 
why, by judicious calculation and a logical blending of elements, 
happiness should not be attained. Her recipe would have been 
something as follows : 

Take of silver florins as much as will buy a house in town and 
keep a villa in the country; mix to flavor with golden ducats; con- 
solidate the whole by a handsome balance at some well-established 
bank; throw in a coronet, and add to it a husband who will let you 
have your own way. 

Ilesult: (Who could doubt it?) Happiness. Some tastes might 
prefer more town and less country, or mce versa ; but those were 
details. 

Gretchen stooped to pick up a paper — the bill for the apple-blos- 
soms ; eight florins w^as really not much, considering the result. 
Belita’s letter was still in her hand ; she slowly folded it up. Per- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


13 


haps— perhaps her answer to that letter might contain as important 
a piece of news as the one here announced. Her fortune might be 
made as well as Belita’s, perhaps as brilliantly as Belita’s; for surely 
he would be as rich as the Conte Luigi Francopazzi — possibly 
richer? And having reached this point, Gretchen repeated her ques- 
tion aloud, “Who can it be?” The father, as he walked down the 
street, had laughed to himself at the idea of a girl of eighteen pre- 
tending not to guess such a riddle; but in very truth Gretchen was 
in the dark. During her first Carnival many looks and words had 
flattered her vanity, but none had succeeded so far as to touch her 
heart. She had met with much admiration, but she had not been 
prepared for so rapid and immediate a triumph. She began to go 
through the names of all her most constant partners. 

Gretchen was nothing if she was not methodical. She had formed 
a cut - and - dry opinion of every single one of her acquaintances. 
Her eyes were accustomed to take stock of every object and every 
person they saw, and by a quick contraction of the delicate mouth 
a sharp observer might guess at the nature of the judgment instant- 
ly passed. Her acquaintances were all catalogued and ranged in 
order within a secret storehouse of her brain. She had seldom been 
puzzled as yet as to the judgments to be passed, or the exact place to 
be assigned in her liking. She found no difliculty whatever about 
the matter: she had as y6t found very little ditficulty about anything 
of any kind. Mentally, she wrote out the designations as follows ; 

"'Lieutenant Stumpfenspor. — Good-natured and slow; the sort of 
man to be trusted with untold gold ; but as he has none of his own, 
and I none to trust him with, must not let him go too far in his at- 
tentions.” 

‘"Herr non Sattleben. — A shrivelled worldling; thinks I am a toy 
to be played with ; but he shall soon find out that some toys have 
sharp edges, and can cut people’s fingers.” 

' Such an intangible catalogue is useful for occasional reference, 
and Gretchen referred to it now ; taking the list to hand, she looked 
up a special column which was marked "" Epouseurs” and here she 
alighted, among others, upon the following names: 

""Herr von Barten. — Not so stupid as he looks, but quite as heavy 
as the cloth he manufactures. N.B. — The cloth trade is improving 
daily.” 

""Baron Gentlemanlike; rather amusing, and very 

conceited; but I think I could cure him of that.” 

This last name was, so to say, mentally underscored ; and there 
was a note added, which had all the emphasis of italics, “ The best 
parti of the seasonT 

It was upon these last two names that Gretchen’s attention re- 
mained fixed ; the balance of her surmises was pretty equally 
divided between them, although a few others were not quite out of 
the question. 

“ If it is either of these,” she decided, “ I shall not say ‘ Yes ’ quite 
at once; but I shall certainly not say ‘No.’ If it is any of the 
lancer lieutenants, then I must be stern, for I know that they are all 


14 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


penniless. But, really, I wonder who he is, and I wish he would 
not keep me waiting so long; I am quite prepared now — not in the 
least flurried — ” 

A ring at the hell cut the words short. There was a step in the 
passage, and Gretchen, though she was not in the least flurried, 
turned rather pale, and began to wish that after all the apple-hlossoms 
had not taken such immediate effect, and that nobody was coming 
to propose to her. 


CHAPTER II. 

A LEGAL ADVISER. 

“ I too a sister had, an only sister ; 

She loved me dearly." — ComciiinGE. 

While Gretchen had been settling the amount of her future in- 
come, at the opposite end of the town a tall man was walking lei= 
surely through the streets. 

The rain splashed in heavy drops on his hat, each drop squirting 
up again like a liny fountain, then joining into little torrents, which 
ran merrily down his forehead and his nose, blurring the glass of 
his massive spectacles, then losing themselves a little in his beard, 
and ending by drawing long wet lines all down his winter coat. He 
had an umbrella with him, but it was tightly rolled up in his hand, 
instead of fulfilling an umbrella’s vocation. He walked on with a 
long but unhurried step, as unconcerned about the weather as if 
there had been a dry pavement beneath his feet and a blue sky over- 
head, and evidently plunged in some deep and absorbing thought. 
Still, with that abstracted look on his face, and with a mere mechan- 
ical sense of locality which spoke of constant habit, he turned into a 
narrow lonely street, and entered a door. 

A steep staircase took him up to the second story, and there, on a 
brass plate, stood engraved the name — 

“Dr. ViNCENZ Komers.” 

That was his door, and the name on the brass plate was his name. 
He was Vincenz Komers, lawyer, or Doctor der J^chte, coming home 
rather late from his office to his dinner. 

Before he had had time to touch the bell - handle, the door was 
opened quickly from the inside, and a thin, sallow-faced lady con- 
fronted him. 

“I knew it was you ; I heard your step,” she greeted him in a 
tone of shrill reproach. ‘ ‘ Too stingy, of course, to give himself a 
cab home in the rain ; never minds whether he frightens his sister 
into fits by coming home late ; overworks himself, catches cold, and 
I have to nurse him when I need nursing myself.” 

She had drawn him into the room by this time, and was looking 
at him critically. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


15 


“ Preserve us! he has not opened his umbrella; he has ruined his 
best hat and soaked his collar. Nothing like a lawyer for nice prac- 
tical common-sense!” 

Certainly Dr. Komers presented a rather striking sight, as he stood 
there with his neatly rolled-up umbrella in his hand, and the rain- 
drops dripping from his clothes. His sister contemplated him with 
a sort of affectionate contempt, then curtly prescribed dry clothes as 
the prelude to eating his “ cold dinner.” 

Vincenz meekly complied, and presently re-appeared metamor- 
phosed from an amphibious into a terrestrial being. 

His sister looked at him again critically. 

“ Did you not see your slippers standing ready for you ? Why 
have you not put them on?” 

“Because I must go out again this afternoon,” answered Vincenz, 
his pale face flushing ever so slightly. 

“ Indeed! to your oflice?” 

“No, not to my office.” 

“Might I venture to inquire where to?” 

“To the Krautgassey 

“ Oh, there again!” 

Vincenz laid down his spoon to let his “cold” soup cool, but he 
did not answer. 

Having waited for a minute, Anna found herself obliged to add, 
“Anything new about their precious lawsuit? Is it going to come 
to an end at last?” 

“ Not that I know of; matters remain perfectly unchanged.” 

“ Then what is it you are going to do in the Krautgassef'' 

Vincenz looked up with marked impatience. 

“Does it not strike you, Anna, that a man need not always go 
there as a legal adviser? Why should I not call in the Krautgasse 
as a friend?” 

There was a sort of pride in the way he said the last word. 

“As a friend — ah!” repeated Anna. Then she looked from her 
brother to the girl Who was waiting upon them; and then she sat 
silent for some time, eating her dinner and throwing stolen and pierc- 
ing glances at Vincenz opposite. 

Although she had, with cheerless emphasis, invited him to come 
to his cold dinner, the dinner was in fact scalding hot. Anna was 
too good a llausfrau, and far too devoted a sister, to let anything 
but a steaming repast be set upon the table. She dearly loved to re- 
ceive her brother, when he came late from his office, with promises 
of discomfort and over-cooked meat— but she would rather have cut 
off her right hand than have fulfilled these prophecies. Had she not 
stood in the kitchen herself to-day, roasting her face over the fire, 
and earning for herself one of her chronie headaches, merely in or- 
der that Vincenz should get his fried carps crisp and hot, as he liked 
them on fast-days? 

Anna w^as four years older than her brother, and long before she 
had passed the bamer of her fortieth year she had given up all claim 
to feminine charms. But feminine she remained in mind and man- 


16 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


ner; womanish and womanly in the highest degree, in spite of the 
commanding mien and cutting tone with which she armed herself, 
and in defiance to the dash of strong-mindedness she carried on the 
surface. It was a mere coat of varnish, and under the thin glaze her 
true nature lay. 

She was tall, meagre, and already wrinkled — her features cut so 
sharply as to be almost a caricature ; ill health it was, more than years, 
which had so quickly withered her cheek. 

She never could have been beautiful ; but there had been a time 
when that exaggerated profile had not been without its charm ; and 
even now there were moments when, entering the half -lighted room, 
or looking at her without his spectacles, Vincenz was vividly re- 
minded of what she had been in the days when they were both young 
and prosperous, and before Anna had had that mortal illness which 
had ended her youth with one blow. 

The maid-servant had scarcely closed the door behind her when 
Anna looked at her brother and said, “ Well?” 

“Well what?” 

“How about that visit? Explain yourself.” 

For a moment Vincenz hesitated. Should he confess or evade?' 
“Evade” was the first instinctive answer which rose in his mind; 
but in the next second he had felt that he ought to confess. The 
remembrance of a past obligation, the consciousness of a heavy debt, 
for which his whole life could not repay Anna, rose before his eyes. 
She had a right to his confidence. What a minute before had irri- 
tated him as womanish curiosity, now appeared to him in the light 
of sisterly solicitude. He threw down his napkin, and taking off his 
spectacles, began to rub them with much unnecessary zeal, looking 
straight at his sister, while, with a touch of defiance in his voice, he 
said, 

“lam going to try my chance with her.” 

Anna returned her brother’s look without the slightest surprise, 
for she had known perfectly well what was coming. She had seen it 
coming all these long months, although never had he breathed one 
word to her. She had seen it coming before even he had seen it 
coming himself. Therefore when, after a moment’s pause, he be- 
gan explaining who “she” was, and what “taking his chance” 
meant, Anna interrupted him— 

“You need not tell me— I know it all.” 

Here was a shock for Vincenz, who all this time had been priding 
himself on his masculine impenetrability. He had never written a 
single love-verse which might have fallen into her hands; he had 
never hung up the sacred photograph in his room ; he had never 
pronounced the name, whose very sound stirred his heart, except in 
what he considered to be a studiously indifferent tone. He had never, 
he was quite sure— he had never been caught in the act of kissing 
that battered old pocket-book which she with her own fingers had 
so amiably and deftly stitched up for him. No, lie was quite confi- 
dent that he had not comported himself like a heart-sick lover, and 
yet Anna had guessed! 


.THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


17 


Her voice broke in upon bis thoughts. 

“ Why must you do it to-day?” 

“I should have done it long before to-day, only that during the 
Carnival weeks there was no possibility of approaching her. I dare 
not now delay. ” 

“Nobody but you would think of choosing Ash- Wednesday as 
the day of your betrothal. ” 

“It remains to be seen whether it is the day of my betrothal,” 
said Vincenz, with an anxious smile. 

“ Vincenz, this is nonsense ! What can you fear?” 

“Rivals, Anna; she is so young and beautiful.” 

‘ ‘ So sweet and tender and helpless, why do you not add ?” re- 
torted Anna, sharply. ‘ ‘ Oh for the blindness of men ! Do you not see 
that that girl, who looks as delicate as an angel going into consump- 
tion, is in reality as wiry as a man, as tough as a sailor, as hard- 
headed as a lawyer — ay, and as hard-hearted too? I believe, more 
hard-hearted than some lawyers—” she added, with a severe glance 
at her brother. “No, Vincenz ; angels may have golden hair, but 
golden hair does not make angels.” 

“Anna,” said Vincenz, unheeding, “what do you think of my 
chance?” 

“ Your what?” 

“My chance of winning her.” 

“It may amuse you to call it a chance, but you must know per- 
fectly well that you cannot seriously contemplate the possibility of 
a refusal.” 

“ It is not a grand marriage for her.” said Vincenz, musing; “ but, 
after all, I do not ask her to share a crust of bread with mo ; she need 
not go without the comforts which she has in her father’s house.” 

“I will tell you what I think,” burst out Anna. “You are throw- 
ing yourself away. Not a grand marriage for her? Pooh! you are 
ten times too good, and too handsome, and too clever for her. She 
ought to thank you on her knees for your condescension.” 

Vincenz smiled absently; he was used to such speeches. If he 
could have seen himself with Anna’s eyes, he would have beheld a 
sort of impossible demi - god, as far above his fellow - creatures in 
loftiness of character and majesty of countenance as the sky is re- 
moved from the earth. Even as it was, he had been sufficiently in- 
fluenced to think himself both clever and good-looking beyond the 
average of men, until a certain day, when he had for the first time 
looked at himself in the light of a suitor for that flower-faced girl in 
her teens ; then only his mirror had told him that his youth was past, 
and then only he discovered all the qualities which he wanted, and 
wished, with all the strength of his strong mind, that he could be 
twenty times better looking, and greater and more brilliant, for her 
sake. 

“I wonder you never thought of marrying Barbara Bitterf reund, ” 
said Anna, “instead of that chit of a girl. Barbara would have 
suited you much better. She has just written a pamphlet upon the 
prospects of lady dentists.” 


18 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Vincenz shuddered a little. 

“ Why, Barbara is seventeen years older than — ” 

‘ ‘ And two years younger than yourself, ” interrupted Anna ; “and 
you don’t call yourself old.” 

This was a new view of the case for Vincenz. Hitherto Barbara 
Bitterfreund had always appeared to him in the light of an old scare- 
crow; and yet it was quite true that she was two years younger than 
himself. Was it not barely possible that he might appear in the 
light of an old scarecrow when looked at by eyes of eighteen? He 
lost himself in the train of thought suggested by this idea. 

Brother and sister were in their sitting-room now; there was a 
long pause. Oh one side the rain-drops fell against the pane ; on 
the other there was the clatter of plates as the maid-servant was 
clearing away the remains of the fried carp. 

Anna lay back with closed eyes, for her head was beginning to 
ache. Vincenz stood and looked round the room, as he had never 
looked at it before. The wall-paper seemed to him dingy to-day ; 
he had not till now noticed how shabby was the piece of carpet in 
the middle of the room; how unshapely looked the pile of law papers 
which loaded his writing-table; and really it was time that Anna 
should replace that starved-looking pot of ivy by some brighter plant. 

“ 1 wish the stairs were not so steep,” he said aloud. 

Anna understood the thought underlying that wish. 

“If they are good enough for you they will be good enough for 
her.” 

He scarcely heard the words. 

There was another pause, longer this time, and then Vincenz, look- 
ing at his watch, walked to the table and took up his hat. 

Anna opened her eyes and followed his movements. 

“ Are you really going now?” 

“Yes, it is time,” said Vincenz, brushing his hat, and speaking 
with forced composure. 

Anna’s lips tightened as if in pain. She thoroughly disapproved 
of the step he was about to take ; but she knew perfectly well that 
it would be taken. She could bully Vincenz about his coats, and 
his boots, and the pattern of his neckties ; but she never could move 
him an inch in such a resolution as this. Fortunately she was wise 
enough to spare the unnecessary annoyance of attempted persuasion, 
both to herself and to him. 

It was a moment of trepidation as Vincenz took up his hat, and 
in spite of herself the trepidation touched Anna also. The sound of 
the hat-brush even had something solemn in it, and the fact that 
Vincenz was not much given to the polishing of his hats gave all 
the more weight to the circumstance. He would not have thought 
of doing it if it had not been for her: henceforward everything 
would be done for her. Anna watched him, and it seemed to her 
that a great deal more than mere dust was being brushed away in 
this minute. 

When the hat had been operated upon with a perseverance which 
threatened to be destructive, Vincenz turned, and said slowh’-, “I 


TUE WATEHS OF HERCULES. 


19 


am going; if it is ‘Yes,’ you need not expect me home till late.” 
Then, with a change of tone, “ If it is ‘No,’ I shall be back at once, 
in half an hour.” 

“ If,” echoed Anna, firing a last shot. “ I wish— I wish with all 
my heart that it could be no, but that is impossible. Of course I 
shall have to sit up late. There is no hope of a refusal.” 

“Good-bye,” said Vincenz from the door; “will you not wish 
me luck, Anna?” 

But Anna leaned back again with closed eyes, and gave no an- 
swer. He shut the door softly, and went out. 

She let him get as far as the top of the staircase, and then, 
springing from her chair, overtook him, breathless. 

She did not speak to -wish him good-luck, but she first seized his 
hand, and then threw her thin arms round him. 

For one minute brother and sister held each other thus clasped. 
Anna was somewhat less profuse in her caresses than the generali- 
ty of German sisters, and Vincenz understood her now, though she 
said no word. She was meagre and withered and unbeautiful, but 
she was his sister, and they had been all in all to each other during 
so many long years ; for these two stood alone in the world. The 
same thing was in both their minds. I do not know what strange 
train of ideas it was which made them both think now of another 
day, long past, as decisive as this one — the day on which Anna’s 
youth had been ended. 

When his steps had died away on the steep staircase, the old 
maid went back to her room and to her knitting. Her head ached 
acutely, but the click of the needles would at least break the silence 
of the lonely room. 

She sat till the rain ceased and the early dusk fell ; then she knit- 
ted on by the light of the lamp, pausing every now and then to lis- 
ten for his step. 

The clock from the nearest church-spire struck ten, and Anna rose. 

“It is no use sitting up later,” she said aloud, as she rolled up 
lier knitting. “There is no sense in waiting; I shall hear it soon 
enough.” 

But though there was no sense in w’aiting, the stroke of the next 
hour still fell upon wakeful ears; and the young moon, looking in 
doubtfully at the window, saw the figure of a thin w^oman with idle 
knitting-needles in her lap. 

Eleven o’clock, and Anna still sat up — for Vincenz had not yet 
returned. 


CHAPTER HI. 

THE ASH- WEDNESDAY VISITOR. 

“ Alas ! syr knight, how may this bee, 

For my degree’s soe highe ?” — Sir Cauline. 

Gretchen, though somewhat pale, stood resolutely facing the 
door when she heard the sound of a man’s step in the passage. It 


20 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


was not quite jaunty enough for Baron Federbuscli, nor ponderous 
enough for Herr von Barten ; and there was no clank of spurs to be- 
tray a lancer lieutenant. Who could it be? 

“Dr. Komers,” announced the servant, opening the door and clos- 
ing it again behind the lawyer. 

Gretchen’s pulses calmed down instantly, and the color came back 
to her face ; relief, disappointment, and amusement all took pos- 
session of her at once. On the whole, amusement had the upper 
hand. Here she had been listening for the approach of a suitor; 
and after all, that step had belonged to Dr. Komers, the family 
lawyer, whom she had known for years, and who had probably 
brought some scanty shred of information about the Damianovics’ 
case. It was provoking that he should have been shown in here, 
and just at this critical juncture, when any minute might bring the 
expected wooer. 

Her first impulse was to vent her displeasure on Dr. Komers ; but 
looking at the matter from a logical point of view, it struck her that 
Dr. Komers was not to blame. It should have been made clear to 
the servant that the visitor she expected was a young gentleman, and 
not middle-aged like this one. No doubt her mother would appear 
soon to take him off her hands, and in the mean time she must enter- 
tain him. It was a respite; and perhaps a little calm conversation 
with the family lawyer might help her to prepare for the coming 
crisis. 

“Does mamma know that you are here ?” she graciously inquired, 
“lam sure that she will appear directly,” and Gretchen motioned 
Dr. Komers to a seat. 

“There is no hurry,” said Dr. Komers, first peering at the chair 
in his short-sighted manner, and then sitting down upon it. 

“I hope your sister is quite well?” inquired Gretchen, noticing 
the extra shade of gravity on the lawyer’s face. 

“ Thank you, as well as she ever is.” 

“You have not brought mamma any bad news ?’' 

“ I have not brought any news at all.” 

“ Then why have you come?” w^as rising to Gretchen’s lips; but 
she checked herself in time, remembering that it would not be logi- 
cal to show her vexation. 

The conversation seemed likely to drop here, for Vincenz was 
wondering whether, after all, her father could have prepared her; 
and according to his invariable habit, when he became involved in 
a train of thought, had lost for the moment all sense of his sur- 
roundings. 

Vincenz Komers had two distinct and quite opposite manners. 
Ill the law-court or at his desk he was the clear-minded, keen-sight- 
ed lawyer, who never for a moment permitted his vagrant thoughts 
to carry him from the point in hand; but no sooner was his office- 
door closed behind him than the whole man underwent a trans- 
formation. He became absent, dreamy, awkward sometimes, al- 
though never shy. His nature was unsociable ; and a loss of fortune 
and position in early youth had fed this disposition, until he had 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


21 


become a systematic shunner of his fellow-creatures; he was what 
is termed sauvage. He struck attention everywhere as a conspicu- 
ous figure— an absurd figure, perhaps, with his tall, stooping frame, 
his short-sighted gaze, and gold-rimmed spectacles; but not all the 
absurdity in the world could make him look otherwise than a gen- 
tleman, The Mohrs were the only family with whom circumstances 
had thrown him intimately in contact. For several years he had 
been in the habit of visiting there — merely as a legal adviser, he 
persuaded himself; but though, since the death of old Zanderer (who 
had been his principal, and from whose hands he had received the 
legacy of the Damianovics case), it is true that there had been 
many business conversations between Ascelinde and Dr. Komers, 
it is equally true that business had often been followed by a 
warm invitation from Adalbert, and a friendly supper in the fam- 
ily circle. 

A very tall man, with spectacles and a beard, was the first general 
impression which Vincenz produced ; but the nearer he was looked 
at, and the longer he was known, the more there was to be discov- 
ered in his face. The thick, rich brown beard, which almost reached 
the middle of his chest, did its best to conceal the fine moulding of 
the jaw and the classical cut of the mouth ; but the curve of the 
nostrils and the bold sweep of the high white forehead were enough 
to show that it was both a handsome and a proud face. It was a 
calm face as well, and grave, and would have exactly accorded with 
the manner, only that the short-sighted eyes had a habit of lighting 
up suddenly in a way which betrayed that that calmness owed some 
of its existence to training and not all to nature. In stature he was 
not only tall, but massive and large-limbed, although utterly lacking 
that straightness of carriage which a large frame requires. 

A painful want of drill betrayed itself in both his sitting and his 
standing attitudes. Placed in tender youth under a drill-sergeant, 
he might have learned how to manage his long legs with more ease 
and grace, and a certain degree of rigidity would have replaced the 
general looseness of his appearance. A connoisseur of human phy- 
sique would have sighed to see such breadth of shoulder stooping 
over a desk, instead of breasting the beating waves; a recruiting- 
sergeant would have measured his general build with an approv- 
ing eye ; a worshipper of virile muscle would have cast an envious 
glance at the shape of those long legs which always were in the way 
in a small room, but which in the wrestling arena would have been 
pronounced ‘ ‘ adorable. ” 

The ruddy color of health should have been on those features in- 
stead of that pale, bureaucrat complexion; those long-jointed hands 
should have grown brown with the sun, and not have whitened 
within closed rooms. To look at Vincenz Komers was to think of 
some great fund of power lying waste and useless : of some strongly 
wrought piece of machinery, for instance, iron-sinewed and giant- 
limbed, built up with care and wit, and now standing silent— the 
huge joints rusting in their sockets, the wheels growing helpless 
with inaction; or else, to change metaphors, you might have com- 


22 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


pared him to a wide tract of land on whicli only the puny blue-bell 
trembles and the foolish convolvulus twines, but which on its broad 
and generous breast might have borne corn to nourish thousands; 
or else you might have thought of him as of a mighty cataract, with 
the power of thunder in its voice and the strength of legions in its 
rush, and which yet falls useless upon mossy stones, and wastes its 
spray upon untrodden banks. 

Fate is very provoking sometimes. If every one’s business were 
measured out by his strength, we should at least be spared the ab- 
surdity of seeing a man with the strength of a gladiator and the 
arms of a Hercules passing his day in tying up little parcels neatly 
with red tape ; while that puny youth with thin legs and peaked 
features is sent out to defend his country from her enemies. 

Having waited in vain until Dr. Komers’s train of thought should 
have come to a natural conclusion, Gretchen at length considered 
herself justified in yielding to her first impulse, and asking, “ What 
have you come for?” 

“I wanted first to inquire whether you were quite well?” began 
Vincenz, starting out of his thoughts. 

“But you are always asking me that. Dr. Komers, and you know 
that I am always quite well. You cannot have called here to ask 
that? Are you quite sure you have no news for mamma?” 

“Quite sure. It is not your mother I wish to speak to, but your- 
self.” 

He paused for a moment, and then added, “ I am glad of this op- 
portunity of finding you alone.” 

“I shall not be alone long,” said Gretchen ; and she rose from her 
chair, and walking to the window, threw a searching glance up and 
down the long street, wondering from which side the suitor would 
come. 

“Are you waiting for anybody?” asked Yincenz. 

“ Ye-es,” said Gretehen, hesitating. “Yes, I am expecting a vis- 
itor,” she added, more collectedly, thinking by this threat to drive 
away Dr. Komers. 

Dr. Komers showed no signs of flight. “Your father told me 
that you would be alone this evening,” he remarked, in a tone of 
disappointment. 

“My father!” said Gretchen, turning slowly from the window. 
“ Why, it was he himself who told me of the visitor; he never men- 
tioned you at all.” 

“He told you that you would have another visitor this evening?” 
asked Dr. Komers, rising, and, according to his habit at critical mo- 
ments, taking off his spectacles to rub them. 

“ Yes,” she answered, staring at him with parted lips; but already 
the light of understanding was dawning in her eyes. One moment 
more and it flashed out. 

“You are the visitor!” she cried, and sank down trembling in her 
chair. 

“ Yes, I am the visitor,” said Dr. Komers, with his spectacles still 
in his hand. “ And surely you know why I have come?” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


23 


“I know nothing,” retorted Gretchen, setting her teeth and shut- 
ting her eyes as if to blind herself to the truth. 

“You must know why I have come,” Vincenz was saying, and 
there was a tremor in his deep bass voice. “You must know that 
I love you, and have loved you for long. It was years ago that I 
first set eyes upon you, and my heart went out at once to the lovely 
child ; but it was only months ago that I found out my own feelings, 
and since that moment I have known that there is but one woman 
on earth for me, and that you are that woman.” 

He paused, though the words were crowding to his lips ; he paused 
in dismay at the expression of her face. She had listened to his 
words in a mood which hovered between laughter and tears ; her 
lips parted, her hands clasped, her eyes fixed into a stare of utter 
bewilderment. All her air-castles were tumbling to the ground, and 
on their ruins was springing up again the old weary feeling of Kat- 
zenjaminer, which had made the day seem so long. 

“I have frightened you,” cried Vincenz, with a pang of remorse 
and a vague apprehension that she was going to faint before his eyes. 
He never could rid himself of the feeling that this girl was a sort of 
perishable flower, which could not be touched or scarcely looked at 
without the bloom coming off. If he did not approach her abso- 
lutely on tiptoe, yet there was always a certain instinctive caution 
in his movements : unconsciously he would lower his voice in ad- 
dressing her. A constant dread haunted him lest a breath should 
blow her off her feet, or a rash gesture knock her down ; or lest her 
hand, if shaken too roughly, might break, like a piece of alabaster. 
It was always when beside Gretchen that Vincenz felt most conscious 
of his height, his breadth, and his awkwardness. 

“ I have frightened you,” he repeated, as she still sat silent. “ This 
has been too sudden — too abrupt. I have no right to be as hot-headed 
as a man of twenty-five. But, believe me, I have tried so hard to be 
calm, and I have waited so patiently till now; do not ask me to wait 
longer, Gretchen — let me speak to-day. Whatever the truth may be, 
let me hear it; it is better than this devouring suspense.” 

His eyes were upon hers, forcing her to look at him, but his elo- 
quence had not the power of reaehing her just now. She was still 
plunged too deeply in her disappointment— still too much stunned 
by his audacity to be touched as yet by his passion. 

“You must have known that I loved you,” said Vincenz again. 
“ Will you not give me an answer?” 

Gretchen raised her head at last. 

“Yes,” she stammered; “I do not quite understand. You are 
asking me to— to — ” 

“ To become my wife.” 

There could be no doubt that she heard aright. The stupor of 
consternation was dispersed at last. 

“ Dr. Komers ’’—and her cheek began to burn— “ this surprises me 
so much that I— I find it difficult to believe that you are serious.” 

“ Surprises you! Oh, Gretchen, have you never guessed it? have 
you never known it?” 


24 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


‘ ‘ I never knew anything — I never thought of you at all-in that 
way.” 

“ But it is not too late,” he said, watching her eagerly. “I cannot 
ask you to love me in a day, but I know I should win your love in 
time; and rest assured that there is no man on earth who will love 
you as I do. Will you not think of me now?” 

“No,” said Gretchen, with an involuntary shudder, “ I can never 
think of it.” 

“ And why not, Gretchen?” 

“ Because you are only a poor lawyer,” Gretchen would have an- 
swered had she spoken her inmost thought ; ‘ ‘ because you have to 
scribble for your bread; because you have not got twenty thousand 
florins a year; because you are not a partU’ 

Poor Vincenz! Had he but known his designation in the mental 
catalogue, he might have passed his afternoon peaceably at home 
with his sister and his slippers ; for surely no man who is described 
as “long-legged and short-sighted,” and who is, moreover, referred 
to as “papa’s best friend, and a nice fatherly sort of man, though 
with a tiresome habit of paying long visits,” would ever be foolhardy 
enough to present himself before the author of these remarks in the 
character of a lover. 

“ And why not, Gretchen?” urged Vincenz once more. 

But by this time Gretchen’s sole feeling was one of indignation. 
What ! she, the ambitious Gretchen, who half an hour ago had been 
planning how she was going to make herself precious to the rich 
Baron Federbusch — slie who had never been allowed to forget that 
she carried Damianovics blood in her veins — here she was, the ball- 
room queen, the courted beauty, receiving an olfer of marriage from 
the family lawyer! What would Belita have said to this? And, to 
crown his audacity. Dr. Komers was not even comporting himself 
as a humble and diffident lover should. He was not on his knees, 
begging for her love in deprecating accents. He was standing there 
looking at her — with impassioned eyes, it is true, but with nothing 
in his face to show that he thought she would be lowering herself 
by loving him— with nothing to say that he considered himself a 
bit worse than she was. He was not entreating for her love as a 
favor; liis tone said that he almost asked for it as a right. 

“ Why not?” she repeated, coldly, but her voice shook a little with 
the tumult of feelings within her. “I cannot give you one reason, 
for there would be thousands to give ; because it is impossible, in- 
congruous — not to be thought of for a moment — because — ” 

“Because what?” asked Vincenz, coming a step nearer in his ex- 
citement, while his burning gaze plunged deep into hers. 

“Because I shall never be a poor man’s wife,” flashed out the 
girl, scarcely knowing what she said. She threw back her head 
against the cushion, and dropped her gaze to the floor. Vincenz 
could no longer see the expression of her eyes, but she could watch 
him very well through her long lashes. They were a silken curtain 
which hid her thoughts from the world when she chose, but they 
never hid the world from her. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


25 


Was the family lawyer’s audacity crushed at last? No; he did 
not look crushed, or in the slightest degi’ee humbled. On the con- 
trar}’-, he was holding his head higher than before. He did not look 
humbled; he only looked sorrowful, and he was gazing at her with 
a sort of pitying wonder. The tall man looked very gentle as he 
stood there, no longer attempting to speak ; but it was not the gentle- 
ness of the lamb — not that gentleness which springs from meekness 
of disposition, but rather that which comes from an excess of strength. 
With Vincenz it sprang from a passion which he dared not show, a 
power which he dared not use, when dealing with so frail a creature. 

If Dr. Komers had looked angry, or drawn himself up sternly, 
Gretchen might never have bestowed a second thought on the words 
that had escaped her ; but when he gave her only one sorrowful look, 
and then walked slowly and silently to the window, a revulsion of 
feeling was the natural consequence. 

What had she said? she hurriedly questioned herself, and blushed 
with shame as the ungracious phrase came back to her memory. 
She had seen by that look how deeply she had wounded the man, 
and she understood now, all at once, how cruel she had been. And 
not only cruel, reasoned Gretchen, but also illogical, and consequent- 
ly unjust; and justice was the very virtue on whose possession Gret- 
chen especially piqued herself. The combination of circumstances 
had been unfortunate ; but Dr. Komers need not have been ill-treated 
on that account : he had not combined the circumstances. Clearly an 
apology was due to him. 

Gretchen looked towards Dr. Komers; he was standing at the 
window now, and had put on his spectacles again, preparatory to 
departure. She was not usually diffident of speech, but that man at 
the window seemed so utterly and so suddenly to have forgotten her 
presence that she hesitated for a moment as to how she should re- 
mind him of it. 

There was a carriage rolling down the street, and the clatter wdiich 
it made on the pavement would have drowmed her voice. Gretchen 
thought she wmuld wait till the carriage was past before she began 
her apology. Dr. Komers was looking out of the window very in- 
tently. 

The carriage did not pass, but the clatter came suddenly to an end 
— almost under the window, it seemed. Gretchen, though not for- 
getful of her apology, yet felt her curiosity aroused ; she wanted to 
see why the carriage had stopped here, and at what Dr. Komers was 
peering down so earnestly through his spectacles. With a double 
purpose in her mind, therefore, she rose from her chair and advanced 
towards the window. 

The rain had stopped some time ago; and now at the eleventh hour 
the setting sun burst forth, and, with one shower of light, made the 
dripping streets glorious. Every chimney and window-pane all 
along the street took fire as if by common consent; the small knot 
of foot-passengers who had gathered at the house-door were framed 
in a golden halo ; the wet pavement at their feet had turned into a 
path of yellow light. 


26 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


“Dr. Komers,” said Gretchen, advancing to the window; but 'be- 
fore she had reached it Dr. Komers turned round. His expression 
was quite changed ; his face looked pale in the sunset. lie put out 
his hand and stopped her in the act of advancing. 

“ You must not come here,” he said, in a quick, peremptory tone; 
“you must not look out of the window.” 

His look was so strange and his words so hurried that Gretchen 
began to tremble with a nameless dread. 

“ Sit down,” said Dr. Komers, and he pointed to a chair; and Gret- ' 
chen, wondering at her own obedience, sat down as she was told. 
Her trembling lips could form no question, only her eyes followed 
Dr. Komers with a beseeching gaze as he rapidly walked to the 
door. She was conscious of a great reluctance to being left alone. 

He seemed to have read her thought, unspoken though it was, for 
he turned at the door. 

“Do not be frightened, and do not move from here till I return. 

I think there has been an accident — in the street. ” 

He had closed the door almost before he had done speaking; his 
hurried steps went down the passage ; but Gretchen sat as he had 
left her, and stared only at the door, too much frightened to ask her- 
self what it was that she feared. 


CHAPTER IV. 

A VICTIM OF SCIENCE. 

“Wherefore let him that thiuketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 

1 Cor. X. 12. 

Accidents, together with concerts, balls, births, marriages, advent- 
ures, and discoveries, are to the w^orld at large neither more nor less 
than a newspaper item — a food for daily gossip which stands rather 
higher in interest than natural death, and rather lower than wilful 
murder. The column of accidents will scarcely be scanned with as 
much attention as the column of exchange; and though the habitual 
newspaper reader may feel somewhat itt-used if nothing more ex- 
citing has occurred than the drowning of a couple of village boys 
out bathing, his interest in the accident column is not likely to take 
any shape but this. 

llow wonderfully, how selfishly callous we are towards the mis- 
fortunes of all except that handful of fellow-creatures with whose 
features and voices and manners, neckties and coats, we happen to 
be familiar ! How little we are touched by the destruction of un- 
known men ! Oh, strange want of imagination ! amazing poverty 
of fancy! 

Who loses a ni.^ht’s sleep because some peasant lad has been killed 
by lightning? Whose appetite suffers because of the list of charred 
corpses that were dragged from the ruins of a theatre ? Whose 
spirit is dejected because a workman has fallen from his scaffolding 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES'. 


21 


and been picked up dead? Workmen falling from scaffoldings is a 
thing which happens every day, and, according to the average num- 
ber of houses being built, must continue to happen. If we take the 
trouble to say, “Poor man!” this certainly is the greatest length to 
which our good -nature goes. We never stop to follow up the 
thought, nor picture to ourselves the dead man brought home, his 
orphans’ faces, and his widow’s tears. “How fortunate that I did 
not pass down that street this afternoon!” we perhaps remark; for 
we think more of the shock that has been spared our nerves than of 
that unknown individual’s death. Next paper most likely brings 
the account of a more sensational accident — perhaps a gigantic ex- 
plosion, or a mysterious murder, which feeds our appetite for romance 
with higher seasoned food — and the workman is forgotten while he 
still lies unburied. 

But the selfishness of youth is a more refined and more perfect 
form of the general selfishness of humanity; and Gretchen possessed 
this first bloom of selfishness in a not inconsiderable degree. More- 
over, she had a spirit which inclined to the sanguine order. Never 
once had she contemplated the possibility of misfortune coming her 
way. She had always felt blindly confident that the train in which 
she travelled would not run against any other train ; that the house 
in which she lived would not fall to pieces and bury her. All the 
more utterly overwhelming was the agony of the moment which 
had now come. 

Never in after-days was she able to recall exactly the details of 
this terrible evening. There had been a period of suspense — how 
long she did not know : it might have been hours, or perhaps only 
minutes, that she had sat rigid in her chair; then there was the dark- 
ened bedroom, which to her bewildered eyes seemed to be unaccount- 
ably full of people — the servants in a flutter — her mother in hysterics; 
hurried whisperings and hushed footsteps; two unknown men with 
grave faces, whom she guessed to be doctors; a thin fussy gentleman 
whom she vaguely recognized as Herr Steinwurm, one of her father’s 
scientific friends, and who in a quick staccato voice, and with much 
agitation of manner, was talking incessantly and excitedly. 

On the bed lay a motionless figure bleeding from a wound in the 
forehead. The hair had been pushed back and drenched with water ; 
the white face was painfully distorted. 

This was the father from whom Gretchen had parted so carelessly 
only two short hours ago. 

She was conscious of a strange feeling of unreality as she lay on 
her knees and held the cold white hand in hers. What she said, or 
whether she wept, she could not afterwards remember; but she knew 
that Dr. Komers had spoken to her, that the physicians had tried to 
drag her away, and that even Herr Steinwurm had put in his word 
of exhortation. 

“Dear Friiulein Mohr,” he implored, while moving about restless- 
ly on his thin legs, which, together with his face and general frame, 
bore an appearance of mustiness and mildew, as if he himself had 
been recently dug out of some dark and gloomy catacomb — “dear 


28 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Fraulein Mohr, avoid agitation, and try and resign yourself to Provi- 
dence. No one can be more distressed than I am. These are the 
sacrifices which Science demands. I was within an ace of being 
smashed myself. I can still see it hovering — all over in a minute — 
man and stone disappearing together ; but,” he added, with a touch 
of pride, “I insisted on the man being attended to before the stone. 
Science may suffer; but humanity first, I say. Dear Frilulein Mohr, 
these sacrifices are unavoidable. You must have heard of the de- 
struction of twenty-seven workmen last year — just in the same way, 
only on a larger scale, that is all ; but the same, radically the same. 
Science — yes. Science is cruel. Think of Providence, think of Sci- 
ence, Friiulein Mohr. ” Thus Herr Steinwurm prattled on, unheeded 
and unchecked. 

There was much whispering and consultation round the bed ; the 
two doctors contradicted each other in a polite undertone, and re- 
futed each other’s opinions with due regard to professional eti- 
quette. 

“Is there any hope?” Gretchen managed at last to inquire, with 
apparent calmness. 

The whispering began again; the doctors cleared their throats, 
hesitated, glanced irresolutely around them; finally, the least eva- 
sive of the two admitted grudgingly that there existed a certain con- 
ditional possibility of hope — “for his life,” he added, after a sec- 
ond’s pause. 

Gretchen drew a long breath. “ The wound has almost stopped 
bleeding,” she remarked, in a more hopeful whisper. 

The doctor who had spoken looked at his learned friend, and his 
learned friend looked back at him, and then bent over the patient. 
The first doctor cleared his throat again and stared at Gretchen. 

“The wound in the head? Ah yes, it has stopped bleeding,” he 
said, doubtfully. “ So it is that which frightened you?” 

“ Yes,” she said, with a shudder. 

“That is not the mischief, though.” 

“ Is there anything else the matter?” 

The doctor coughed again, and looked down at his knees, then to- 
wards the bed; and, following his glanee, Gretchen for the first time 
perceived the unnatural twisted attitude in which her father lay: 
the line of the coverlet showed that the legs were half drawn up, in 
a way which suggested some horrible mutilation. 

Now Gretchen understood why the doctor had said that he hoped 
— for his life. Her heart sickened at the thought of the future. 

“But broken legs can be set again,” she resolutely suggested. 

The doctor, who was bending over the bed, observed, without 
looking up, “Knee-cap splintered, compound fracture of the hip- 
bone, both ankles severely injured.” 

It was all the more appalling for being incomprehensible. Hith- 
erto Gretchen had always believed that a thing was either broken 
or it was not; and, onee broken, you had only got to mend it again 
and it would be all right. These nice definitions, these ghastly 
nuances, were strange to her. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


29 


“ Can I be of any use?” inquired Herr Steinwurm, tripping about 
the room, addressing himself to the company collectively. ‘ ‘ Shall 
I be required to stay? Somebody ought to take charge — ah, I per- 
ceive — Dr. Komers ; I am forestalled and the thin antiquarian 
breathed a sigh of undisguised relief. His very breath seemed to 
bring with it a whiff of underground air. “Do you intend to stay, 
Dr. Komers?” 

Vincenz bowed. 

“Ah— exactly; a man without family ties can always dispose of 
his time. Now I am a family man; my wife must have waited sup- 
per for me during the last hour. I scarcely feel justified in staying 
longer. Domestic duties, you know. If it had been cold supper, I 
might possibly ” (“we have cold supper twice a week,” he explained, 
parenthetically)— “ but this is not the day ; I am so distressed ! Good- 
night, Dr. Komers. Try and keep up your spirits, Fraulein Mohr; 
I am so distressed!’’ and Herr Steinwurm sidled out of the sick- 
room, home — and supper -wards — feeling very clear in his con- 
science. What could a man be expected to do for his mutilated 
friend, beyond bringing him home in a cab and sending for a doc- 
tor? 

It was not long after Herr Steinwurm’s departure that one of the 
doctors took his leave; and then, when another half hour of un- 
broken silence had trailed away, the second physician drew on his 
gloves. 

“Are you going also?” asked Gretchen, wistfully. 

“I must; a more pressing case awaits me. I maybe back to- 
wards morning, and I shall bring a nurse. Can you sit up till 
then?” He looked towards Vincenz. 

“/will sit up,” answered Gretchen. 

“There is no need,” said Vincenz from across the bed; “I know 
how these bandages are put on.” He had one in his hand as he 
spoke, and bent forward to lay it right, but Gretchen snatched it 
away. 

“ Leave that to me,” she said, hotly. “ It is I who must sit up.” 

Vincenz made no answer, but walked to the farther end of the 
room, out of the feeble circle of light. 

“Yes, yes; a woman’s hand is lighter,” agreed the doctor, as he 
took his departure. 

Every ten minutes the bandages were to be changed, and with the 
scrupulous over-exactitude of a novice Gretchen counted the sec- 
onds of each interval. She thought she knew the watch that lay 
beside her, but she did not recognize it as Dr. Komers’s. 

The faint ticking of the watch was the only sound in the room; 
it throbbed like the heart of some living thing; only now and then 
the trickle of water broke the silence, as, with her white fingers, 
Gretchen wrung out a bandage. 

The shutters were closed and the curtains drawn, she noticed, and 
vaguely wondered wiio had done it, for no servant had been in the 
room. 

After a time she felt her knees aching, and sat down on a chair. 


30 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Dr. Komers was still at the far end of the room; he had not again 
offered to help her. 

Could it really be possible that within these same twenty-four 
hours Gretchen had been dancing in a lighted ball-room, wreathed 
in garlands of apple- blossoms? It seemed like yesterday, it seemed 
like a week ago. 

She closed her eyes for an instant, and then opened them again at 
a sound. Dr. Komers was standing beside her. 

“I think you had better drink 'Ihis, ” he was saying, holding a 
glass of wine towards her. 

She took it mechanically; and the first taste of wine on her lips 
made her feel how weak and hungry she had been till then. She 
held out the empty glass towards Vincenz without looking at him, 
and he went and sat down again on his distant chair. 

The wine had made her feel quite strong again, thought Gret- 
chen, and strangely wide-awake. She sat with her eyes on the 
watch, counting the seconds. Still three minutes, still two minutes, 
before the bandage must be changed ; and then her head sank back, 
her eyelids closed, and she was fast asleep, with the wet linen in her 
hand. 

The scene of her dream was the vault of the Frauenkirche ; and 
pictures conjured up by Herr Steinwurm’s broken phrases passed 
busily through her brain; but, like most dreams, these pictures were 
false and fantastical, for Gretchen still ignored the facts of the case, 
which in reality were as follows: 

In the vault of the Frauenkirche, an old and somewhat dilapi- 
dated edifice, some repairs, recently begun, had been the source of 
an interesting discovery. An inner opening had been found leading 
to a small and hitherto unknown crypt, which, judging by the in- 
scriptions and the half - effaeed ciphers on some of the stones, ap- 
peared to be of an older date than the body of the church. A few 
lines in a local paper calling attention to this fact had been enough 
to bring a swarm of historians and antiquarians buzzing round the 
Frauenkirche. CoiTespondences were started, in which learned men 
said sarcastic things to each other, and commissions were organized 
to ascertain tho truth and settle knotty points. Adalbert Mohr, as 
a well-known authority, was among the first who were asked for 
their support; and he lent his help with all the energy and eager 
love of discovery, which had not grown weaker but stronger with 
years. 

There were eight men who descended together to the vault— a 
queer assembly of withered faces and gray heads, keen eyes and 
parchment complexions — men who had spent their lives in digging 
in dark corners, and grubbing the secrets of the past out of deep 
holes. Adalbert Mohr, with the slight sprinkling of silver on his 
hair, was the youngest, and at the same time the keenest, among them. 

A question arose about the date of a large flat tombstone, which 
had sunk rather lower than its neighbors into the irregular floor. 
The Roman ciphers, carved deep into the soft stone, had been par- 
tially eaten away by damp. 


THE WATEES OF IIEECULES. 


31 


“I should advise caution,” Professor Nagelrost, the eldest and 
coolest of the antiquarians, had said warningly, as six of Ins col- 
leagues crowded excitedly round the tombstone, crouching painfully 
in the low space, and all but setting fire to each other’s hair with the 
candles they held. “You know the state of the foundations;” and 
he pointed with an experienced finger to the low and threatening 
ceiling against which the head of even the smallest man among them 
was perforce pressed. 

“ Ah, but Science — remember the interests of Science,” exhorted 
Herr Steinwurm, who, with his candle held so that it could drop wax 
only on other people’s clothes and not on his own, was hopping 
about on the outskirts of the company, keeping well out of reach of 
the treacherous spot in the ceiling. 

** It will not do Science much good even if you do succeed in 
ruining my coat with grease-spots,” said Assessor Feuchtkeller, with 
a little temper. “I wish you would not stand behind me; there is 
room enough in front.” 

‘ ‘ Grease-spots ! Is it possible ? I am distressed ! Much obliged, 
very much obliged,” as the assessor stood aside to make room for 
him; “but I really do not feel justified. I have no right to forget 
that I am a family man. Infinitely obliged;” and the two men 
stood opposite each other, each with a dripping candle held at a 
slanting angle, and each gracefully waving the other into the honor- 
able but perilous place, quite willing to forego the prestige of stand- 
ing exaetly below the critical spot in the ceiling. 

“Give me another candle,” said Adalbert Mohr, kneeling down 
on the edge of the stone whose date stood in dispute. He was a 
family man too, but in moments like this he was somewhat apt 
to forget it. More than one candle was held forward, and he took 
the nearest and bent down, passing it slowly along the worn in- 
scription, and striving to connect the surviving fragments. 

He was still bending, and the others still crowded round him, 
when in the silence a slowly grating sound jarred on their ears. 

The ceiling! they thought instinctively of the ceiling; all their 
eyes turned towards it in terror. And while they stared up stupid- 
ly the catastrophe was accomplished, for danger never comes from 
the point we anticipate. It is an enemy which clutches us in the 
rear while we are guarding our front. 

To seven of the antiquarians the ground seemed to heave for a 
moment, and the flickering light of their candle-flames to blind them. 
The slow grating swelled gi’adually, until there burst forth a crash, 
and then followed a sweep as of slipping sand, and then there was 
silence again. 

The central light, on which all their e3’'es had been fixed, had van- 
ished, and the eighth antiquarian, Adalbert Mohr, who had been 
kneeling on the disputed stone, had vanished too. There was a 
black hole, irregularly square, in their midst; for more than one 
stone had been dragged down by the centre one. 

A universal destruction and a common grave threatening, was the 
first thought of the seven terror-stricken men. Herr Steinwurm, 


32 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


being the nearest to the entrance, reached it with two quick little 
strides, and then turned to see what more was going to follow. But 
nothing followed, except a little more ominous rattling of what 
sounded like tiny stones and an invisible avalanche of dry mor- 
tar. 

“Where is the stone gone to?” gasped an opened-mouthed histo- 
rian. 

Then it was that Herr Steinwurm, standing well out of the vault, 
displayed his lofty fellow - feeling by exhorting his companions to 
rescue the vanished man. 

“Humanity first, I say. Drag him out of that hole; it is a tomb 
— a larger tomb than we guessed at. A sacrifice to Science — but 
humanity first !” 

In what precise condition Adalbert Mohr was dragged out of that 
hole has already, in the attending doctor’s words, been told. 

The hole itself was, as the sharp-witted Steinwurm surmised, an 
unusually deep and ancient tomb, the resting - place of some long- 
dead man; but of whom exactly would now never be known. Per- 
haps it was the grave of some peace-loving mortal who in his life- 
time would have shrunk from injuring a fly, but whose tombstone 
now, against his own will, was destined to cost the life of a fellow- 
creature; or perhaps some blood-thirsty warrior slept there, whose 
• span of breath had been too short for all the destruction he brooded, 
and who must needs carry on his murderous practices, and strike 
another blow with his fieshless arm' centuries after his weapons had 
rusted away and crumbled into dust. 

But of all this as yet Gretchen knew notliing. In her dream the 
vault was a ball-room, where the venerable Professor Nagelrost sat 
astride on a tombstone and drummed dance-music on a skull, while 
Herr Steinwurm offered her bouquets of petrified flowers, which, fly- 
ing from her hand, came showering back upon her head ; and at last, 
as they rattled past her ears, she awoke with a start. 

Everything was unchanged, the bandage in its place; only Dr. 
Komers had left his distant chair, and was sitting at the other side 
of the bed. She looked down, and saw that there was a rug thrown 
over her knees, and felt that there was a pillow behind her head. 
Dr. Komers was sitting quite motionless in his chair, and did not 
look towards her. His spectacles and beard were as expressionless 
as ever. 

“Have I been asleep long?” she asked, in alarm. 

“Not very long.” 

“ How long? Ten minutes?” 

“Rather more than that— an hour and a half.” 

“How could you not wake me ? You knew that the bandages 
must be changed.” 

“ I changed them,” said Vincenz. 

She leaned back again, relieved. 

“What o’clock is it?” she asked, after a pause. The watch was 
no longer beside her. 

“A few minutes past one.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


33 


“ So late! Why are you staying so late, Dr. Komers? Why do 
you not go home?” 

“ I am not wanted at home,” said Vincenz, rather coldly. 

“But I really can do without you,” said Gretchen, sincerely, 

“I dare say,” was the short answer. 

“ Will your sister not be waiting for you — for supper?” she asked, 
with a mechanical remembrance of the warm supper to which Herr 
Steinwurm had been forced to hurry back. 

“I don’t know — I dare say,” said Vincenz, indifferently, and again 
a long silence fell over the room. 

Gretchen was beginning to collect her bewildered thoughts. Af- 
ter all, it was rather good-natured of Dr. Komers to make himself 
so useful as a sick- nurse. Of course he was the family lawyer; but 
a family lawyer’s duties do not include dipping bandages in water, 
and losing his supper, whether warm or cold. Now that she thought 
of it, it was he who had charged himself with the solving of all dif- 
ficulties : he had calmed her mother’s tragical agitation, and had in- 
sisted on the hysterical woman’s removal from the sick-room; he 
had restored some degree of self-possession to the terrified servants; 
it was he who had procured the second doctor and written the di- 
rections for the apothecary. The family lawyer had done every- 
thing, and nobody had thanked him for it. And now, like a thing 
forgotten and far away, the scene of the afternoon rose again before 
Gretchen’s mind. She had wounded this man most sorely, and had 
said no word to heal the wound. Could she not say it now? She 
glanced furtively towards him; but at once she felt conscious that 
the apology would not be such a simple thing now as it would have 
been at first. Neither his expression nor his manner afforded her 
any point of attack. He was no longer the lover, he was again the 
sober family friend. He spoke only what was strictly necessary, he 
never looked towards her ; the business of the moment seemed to be 
his only thought, as, peering through his spectacles, he bent over 
the bandages. Was it indeed possible that that look of wounded 
pride had ever been in his eyes? Was it really this same man who 
a little while ago had been wooing her with such passionate elo- 
(pience? 

The night was beginning to wane when Vincenz quitted his post 
at last, and, leaving the patient in the hands of the hired nurse, 
turned his face homeward. The clock of the Frauenkirche had 
struck three before he reached his own door. 

He started as it flew open in his face; and his sister, witli weary 
eyes and her rolled-up knitting in her hand, stood before him. He 
had scarcely thought of his sister all these hours. 

“Anna, why are you not in bed?” 

“I knew I should have to sit up late,” she cried, between alarm 
and a sort of breathless inquiry; “but I did not think it would be 
as late as this. Well, Vincenz, am I to get no news for my pains?” 
and the lean old maid hung on his arm, and gazed up with mingled 
pride and burning curiosity into his face. 

“No news of that sort,” said Vincenz, looking straight before 

3 


34 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


him; “she will not have me.” But in the next minute he stooped 
and kissed the withered cheek, 

“Anna, we must go on being satisfied with each other. I was a 
fool to think that I could ever win her.” 


CHAPTER Y, 

A GLIMMER OF FORTUNE. 

” Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."— King Henry IV. 

After the events last recorded the Frauenkirche was more talked 
about but rather less visited than usual. The principal Schleppen- 
heim paper had a feuilleton article upon the subject, with a double 
title: “The Sacrifices of Science; or, A Noble Life Nobly Lost.” 
The article was published anonymously, but certain peculiarities of 
style and expression pointed towards Herr Steinwurm as the proba- 
ble author. It was much read and commented on, and Herr Mohr’s 
personal qualities were discussed with a freedom and frankness 
hitherto unknown. When, however, a few days had passed, the lit- 
erary production suddenly dwindled in interest, and the charm of 
the style was robbed of its principal point; for it became generally 
understood that the sacrifice to Science was not quite as absolute as 
had been supposed, and that the life, although it might be noble, w^as 
not yet on the point of being lost. 

Adalbert Mohr was pronounced out of immediate danger : one of 
the doctors attending him was reported to give fair hopes of his re- 
covery; the other would not do more than admit the possibility of 
his living. There was also understood to be something wrong be- 
yond the question of life and death ; but the reports which circu- 
lated were uncertain, and would probably remain so until the con- 
sultation of doctors which had been called should have pronounced 
their verdict. 

It was in the forenoon of the day destined for the medical consul- 
tation that Dr. Komers received an agitated note from Madame 
Mohr, summoning him to a business interview, “Business,” as 
Vincenz well knew, was synonymous with “Draskocs;” and so, 
with a business-like but unentliusiastic punctuality, the family law- 
yer obeyed the summons. 

It must be explained that, during the last ten years, the Damian- 
ovics cause had been lingering through one of its most sleepy peri- 
ods— consisting, in fact, of little else than conversations and unan- 
swered letters. Dr. Komers had received it in this state of coma 
from the hands of his dying principal, old Zanderer, and had been 
satisfied to use it as a pretext for visiting the Mohr house, without 
feeling specially inspired to accomplish the work which had trailecl 
on for over forty years. Dr. Komers was received by IMadame 
Mohr and her daughter in a retired sitting-room, and the lawyer 
immediately became aware that there was a certain excitement i)er- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


35 


vatling the manner of both ladies. The daughter, though outward- 
ly calm, betrayed an unwonted exultation in the lustre of her gray 
eyes ; and as for Ascelinde, she made no attempt whatever to mask 
the joyful agitation which glowed within her. 

During the painful week that had passed, Madame Mohr had 
played a passive though lachrymose part. Hysterics and tears 
were more congenial to her dramatically inclined nature than the 
commonplace duties of a sick-nurse. If Adalbert’s hurt had been 
the wound of a poisoned arrow, instead of the more prosaic blow 
of a stone, Ascelinde would not have hesitated to suck the venom 
from his arm. She would have wept and torn her hair at his fu- 
neral, and sprinkled the holy water on his grave, with all the gestures 
of a despairing widow ; but it was not in her nature to sit in a dark- 
ened chamber for hours, with nothing more heroic to do than to 
put his pillows straight or drop out his medicine in a glass. Her 
ideas were too large to be satisfied with such puny services. 

Therefore, after a week of inaction, she hailed the revival of a 
more sympathetic subject. 

“I have heard from Alexius,” were the words with which she 
opened the interview. 

“Hearing from Alexius ” usually meant the petition for the loan 
of a few hundred fiorins; and Vincenz, with some impatience, in- 
quired, “ Is your brother in debt again?” 

“ The count is in ditficulties,” corrected Ascelinde. 

“And he wants more money?” 

“He applies for pecuniary assistance; but — ” 

“But,” broke in Gretcheu, “he makes a proposal in return. 
There, Dr. Komers, read that!” and she placed a letter in his hand. 

In this letter Alexius Damianovics, in plain if somewhat ungram- 
matical terms, offered to resign all claim upon the estate of Dras- 
kocs in favor of his sister, in return for the payment of ten thousand 
florins immediately and in hard cash. The count likewise hinted 
that the modest sum he had named would enable him to live in a 
manner more suitable to his august constitution, and to enjoy some 
of the small comforts which his precarious state of health required. 
The precarious state of health meant, as Vincenz was aware, an in- 
clination to delirium tremens; and the small comforts implied an 
unlimited quantity of Magyar wine, diversified by spirits. 

This letter and the proposal it contained were the source of Asce- 
linde’s exultation. For twenty years she had held faithfully to the 
vow required of her by her dying mother ; she had fought the bat- 
tle for her brother, feeling glorified enough by the reflected light 
which fell upon her. But the task had been hard. She had grown 
subdued in speech and action, and somewhat melancholy in expres- 
sion, as it became one on whose hands rested so heavy a work. 
Like a dethroned queen, she sat on the ruins of her grandeur, mourn- 
ing over the splendor that had departed. To-day there was new 
life ill her veins : she was offered the possibility of gaining for her- 
self that which she had been striving to win for Alexius; and the 
light thus suddenly presented to her blinded her with delight. 


36 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Two pairs of eyes were fixed on Vincenz while he read ; and 
when he laid the letter down, the mother said, “Well?” and then 
the daughter said, “ Well?” and then they both paused for his answ^er. 

“Well,” said Vincenz, with unaccountable calmness, “do you 
think of accepting the proposal?” 

“ Can you imagine me blind enough to my own interests to hesi- 
tate for a moment?” asked Ascelinde, in amazement. 

“But there is a question as to which way your interests lie.” 

She smiled a broad smile of pity. “You talk like a blind man, 
Dr. Komers, for you have never seen the home of my ancestors. I 
almost feel as if I were taking an unfair advantage of my brother 
in accepting his thoughtless offer; for ten thousand fiorins cannot 
be the half — what am I saying? — not the quarter of the value of 
Draskocs. But poor Alexius will never marry ; his unfortunate 
health forbids him to contract family ties. It is upon me alone 
that the weight falls;” and Ascelinde bowed her head as though 
the crown which pressed it were too heavy to bear. 

“How long is it since you last saw the place?” inquired Vincenz, 
coolly. 

“I was seven years old when we left it.” 

“ That is scarcely the age at which we form correct ideas as to 
the value of land.” 

But Ascelinde was losing herself in visions of the past. The 
scene of departure was rising before her eyes. A great house, 
many-windowed and many-chimneyed ; a flight of lofty steps, on 
which her uncle’s tall figure stood bowing them farewell ; the fam- 
ily coach ; the avenue down which they had rolled— all these things 
rose up again before the eye of her inner soul. 

“Ah, Dr. Komers!” she cried, “it grows more distinct in my 
mind every year.” 

“Really!” said Dr. Komers, dryly. 

“How well I remember the entrance-hall — I think there were 
pillars that supported it — and the open colonnade that ran round 
the house on three sides!” 

“With a dark-red pavement,” supplemented Gretchen; “was it 
not red, mamma? It must have been marble, I think.” 

“And my father’s books, my mother’s jewels,” flowed on Asce- 
linde; “her wardrobe— it was all left there; even my toys remained 
behind, in our big nursery up-stairs. Ah, what a panorama we 
viewed from our nursery window!” 

“It must have been a fine house,” remarked Vincenz; “but the 
value of the land is a separate question.” 

“Oh, I remember the land as well as the house, of course. There 
was the court-yard and the fountain, and there were stablings for 
ten horses, and a high park-wall all round. I remember the fields 
too, and the lake.” 

“Yes,” said Dr. Komers, stifling a yawn, “so you have told me.” 

“The fields and the lake, ” repeated Gretchen, impatiently; “are 
you listening. Dr. Komers?” 

“Ah, yes, the fields and the lake,” he reechoed; and, strangely 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


37 


enough, though the words had conveyed no special meaning to him 
before, the Draskocs fields now suddenly became invested with a 
wonderful fruitfulness, and the Draskocs lake assumed an abnor- 
mal charm of aspect in his fancy. 

“And then there was the garden,” pursued Ascelinde. “Ah, if 
you had seen the garden! The trees bent under the weight of the 
fruit. And the roses !” Ascelinde paused here, apparently overcome 
by the impossibility of describing the Draskocs roses. “Even the 
Emperor has not got such roses here ; they had to be carried away 
in cart-loads.” 

“In cart-lords!” emphasized Gretchen, forcibly. 

“In cart-loads — yes, ’’said Dr. Komers, beginning to think, as he 
watched her, that Draskocs must be a fine place after all. “ But he 
added, ‘ ‘ the finest places are sometimes the most encumbered. If 
your uncle has not been a careful manager, you might find the value 
of the estate much diminished — in the event of its coming into your 
hands. ” 

“My guardian,” con-ected Ascelinde, who always scrupulously 
clung to this designation of her unscrupulous relative. Anybody 
could have an uncle, but a guardian implied a certain degree of social 
importance, even though it happened that this particular guardian had 
appropriated to himself the worldly goods of his wards. Ascelinde 
had felt the first shadow of this social importance when, a few weeks 
after her father’s death, Josika had kindly but firmly removed from 
her small fingers the golden watch which she had found on a shelf of 
her deceased parent’s room. “ I will take care of it for you, my dear; 
I am your guardian,” Josika had said, patting her on the head; and 
the deprivation of the watch, bitter in itself, had been sweetened by 
the accompanying circumstances. It had seemed a greater thing to 
have had a gold watch taken away by a guardian than to have re- 
ceived the present of one from an uncle. From that day to this 
Ascelinde had never again set eyes on the watch ; but the feeling of 
importance had survived. She knew him to be a scoundrel, and 
she had devoted her life to unmasking him as a traitor, yet for all 
that he remained her “ guardian ;” for Ascelinde, at fifty, had retained 
many childish characteristics beyond the mere incompleteness of geo- 
graphical and historical knowledge. She had never for a moment 
felt disgraced at the thought of being related to this man. In her 
secret heart of hearts she even cherished a lurking and unspoken ad- 
miration for this bold usurper, whose audacious robbery had deprived 
her brother of his birthright. It would have been shame unbear- 
able to be related to a thief who had stolen a purse or a ring, but no 
one need disown an uncle whose crime was accomplished on so large 
and royal a scale. 

“Your guardian,” repeated Dr. Komers ; “but that reminds me 
that my last letter down there has remained unanswered. We real- 
ly have no reason to suppose that your guardian is still alive. There 
seems to be a sort of death-like stillness settling over Draskocs ; I 
cannot awaken a single answer. Let me see, what would his age be 
now?” 


38 


THE WATERS OE HERCULES. 


“He was ninety - eight when we heard from liim last,” said 
Gretchen. 

“And that was three j^ears ago, when the decision of the Landes- 
gericht was reversed in his favor. ” 

“Why that would make him a hundred and one,” exclaimed As- 
celinde, whose arithmetic fortunately reached as far. “My ^ardian 
always said that he had a long life before him, and the Damiauovics 
are a long-lived race.” 

“There was a shoemaker died near here the other day at the age 
of a hundred and five,” remarked Vincenz; “so there is, after all, 
no reason why your uncle — your guardian — should not still be 
alive.” 

“Oh, indeed!” said Ascelinde, coldly, and she immediately drop- 
ped the subject of the Damianovics being a long-lived race, not car- 
ing to divide the privilege of high age with anything so low as a 
shoemaker. She began to think that her guardian must be dead 
after all. 

“And even if he is dead,” said Gretchen, “it does not really alter 
the case. It is evident, then, that he has long ago carried out his 
threat of marrying his house-keeper — probably he has left heirs, and 
we shall have several enemies instead of one. ” 

“Very likely, ” agreed Vincenz; “and this uncertainty makes it 
all the more advisable to decline the count’s proposition. ” 

“Decline — the — pro — proposition!” stammered Ascelinde, staring 
at Vincenz as if he had suddenly become transformed into a mon- 
ster before her eyes. “Decline the possibility of possessing Dras- 
kocs, the home of my ancestors. Dr. Komers!” 

“ The question is,” said Vincenz, “ what is Draskocs worth?” 

“No, the question is not that,” broke in Gretchen all at once; 
“the question is quite different. Neither you, mamma, nor you. 
Dr. Komers, are looking at the case from a logical point of view. 
Mamma is much too quick, as you are much too slow, in the matter. 
It stands to reason that a house such as mamma has described, with 
fields, lakes, stabling, avenues, and — and roses, must be worth much 
more than ten thousand florins; therefore the question of the worth of 
Draskocs is settled — the real question is, can it ever be ours? Shall 
we survive the end of the lawsuit?” 

“ I hope so,” said Vincenz, somewhat absently. 

The fair orator bit her lip, and a rather threatening glance shot 
towards the lawyer. 

“You hope so,” she repeated. “Tell me the truth. Dr. Komers; 
do you see any chance of a conclusion?” 

“ No very immediate chance, I fear.” 

Gretchen could contain herself no longer. “You fear,” she burst 
out, in a voice which vibrated with anger — “you fear, and you hope, 
and you reflect, and write letters, and hold conversations, but when 
do you act? When has anybody acted in this long-trailed-out, this 
unfortunate cause? How much paper and ink and words have been 
wasted on the Draskocs case, and how little energy! Oh that dur- 
ing forty years and among fifteen legal advisers there should not 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


39 


have been found om man who would put his heart into the work 
instead of only his pen! We are just as near the recovery of our 
fortune now as at the moment when my grandmother left Josika in 
possession; and, at this rate, my brother’s grandchildren and my 
own may use the same words half a century hence. What is the 
use of being a lawyer if you can do no more than hope and fear, 
and express doubtful opinions? Neither your hopes nor your fears. 
Dr. Komers, will end the cause which has dragged on for forty years. 
Oh that I were only a man !” 

Gretchen had risen in her excitement, and, in the warmth of her 
harangue, her fair cheek began to glow. Like Portia addressing the 
senate, she stood before the two admiring auditors, dropping her 
logical arguments from lips that seemed made only to speak the soft- 
est poetry or to breathe the most tender love ; alluding to her grand- 
children in a voice that carried the spirit of the enraptured lawyer to 
dreams of nightingales and musical fountains, although it certainly 
did not move him to second the wish which formed the climax of 
her speech. And with her last words she unveiled her eyes before him. 

She did not mean it, nor had she calculated any effect in this sud- 
den uplifting of those eyes, of whose full power she was not even 
aware. All memory of what had passed between her and Dr. Ko- 
mers, scarcely ten days ago, was blotted out for the moment; she 
forgot that he had ever been anything but the family lawyer and 
counsellor. That uplifting of the eyes was an impulse of the mo- 
ment, done in the heat of her earnestness ; but the most refined 
coquetry, the most subtle management, could not have worked a 
more telling effect. From the reproach, the fire, the brilliancy of 
that gaze, Vincenz drank an inspiration which made his pulses flut- 
ter. With a sudden subtle flash, he felt all his ambition fired. Why 
should he not do what so many others had failed to do? Why 
should he not end the cause which had dragged on for forty years? 
— if only to earn her gratitude, if only to belie her reproach? 

There was silence in the room. Gretchen had sat down again, 
trembling still a little from the vehemence of her speech. Ascclinde, 
with clasped hands, was gazing at her daughter in speechless admi- 
ration. Dr. Komers had risen and had taken a turn down the room. 
Suddenly he stopped before Madame Mohr’s chair. 

“ I have a new idea,” he said, abruptly. “I do not ask you ab- 
solutely to decline the count’s proposition, but only to defer your 
decision.” 

“To defer it? And till when?” 

“Until we have got out of the dark.” 

“ I do not understand. What do you propose?” 

“I propose that I should go down to Draskocs myself, and look 
at the land with my own eyes— ascertain whether your guardian is 
alive — judge of the value of the estate.” 

“Go down to Draskocs!” broke in Ascelinde, clasping her large 
hands in small feminine bewilderment, and staring at Dr. Komers 
ns if he had just announced his intention of going straight to heaven. 
“Do you mean really? Are you sure? When will you start?” 


40 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


“Not quite yet— I have work on hand; in May, perhaps, or June. 
It is no use starting until all necessary information has been collect- 
ed. I shall need some references and directions.” 

References and directions! Ascelinde could supply him with any 
amount, as she eagerly explained ; for she was all fire in a moment, 
sanguine and voluble, as she gazed with wistful eyes at the envia- 
ble mortal who was so soon to behold the home of her ancestors. 
“There are some addresses written down in that old desk of my 
mother’s,” she explained; “perhaps they may help you to find peo- 
ple. I sliall look them out. There is one of Pater Dionysius, the 
priest, who baptized us all; but he must be dead long ago. If he 
had lived, he might have convinced my guardian of the sinfulness 
of his conduct — for he was very pious, and attended my grandfather 
on his death-bed; and my mother said that he preached remarkably 
well.” 

All this time Gretchen had not spoken, for suri;)rise had locked 
her lips. She felt more startled than triumphant at the unexpected 
result of her words. Her mother could not guess the motive of 
this new-born energy; but Gretchen could guess it only too easily, 
and something like remorse smote her heart. Had Fate decreed 
that she should always and ever be in the debt of this man? Was 
he to sacrifice himself to every wish of hers, and she in return do 
nothing but wound his feelings and mortify his pride? This was 
not justice, this was not logic. She rose, and going up to him put 
out her hand. 

“Thank you. Dr. Komers,” was all she said; but Vincenz felt re- 
warded above his deserts. If the resolution had brought him this, 
what would the accomplishment bring him? 

It was from that moment forward that his resolve was sealed. 


CHAPTER VI. 

WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE. 

“ I am no such pil’d cyuiqne to believe 
That beggary is the onely happinesse, 

Or, with a number of tliese patient fooles, 

To sing, ‘My miiide to me a kingdom is !’ ” — Bkn Jonson. 

On the afternoon of that same day three doctors sat in conclave 
to pronounce the verdict on Adalbert Mohr. After two hours passed 
in examination, and consultation, and wordy discourses, much 
adorned with Latin, they all heartily agreed that a watering-place 
and a course of powerful baths was the patient’s best chance of 
furthering the cure of those local injuries which still remained un- 
healed, as well as of re-establishing his shattered constitution ; and 
all as heartily disagreed as to which watering-place was to be select- 
ed, and what species of powerful baths were to be taken. Each of 
the medical authorities had a pet scheme of his own. Doctor No. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


41 


1 spoke for Baden-Baden; Ko. 2 defended Teplitz, in Bohemia; No. 
3 advised Aix-la-Chapelle. 

“ Aix-la-Chapelle!” laughed the first doctor, who was of a sarcas- 
tic turn of mind. “Is my learned friend serious in advising our pa- 
tient to traverse some hundred and odd miles in search of sulphur- 
baths, which he can have almost at his door?” 

“ And which, according to my humble opinion,” put in the second 
doctor, “would be as effectual as ditch-water. It is not a case of 
sulphur at all; it is clearly a case of iron.” 

“ If travelling be an object,” remarked the first speaker, still sar- 
castically, “why not send him to Iceland at once? There are sul- 
phur-springs at the extremity of Northern Europe, and so there are 
on the confines of Southern Hungary. If travelling be an object, 
send him there, by all means.” 

Up to this moment the patient himself had taken no part in the 
discussion around him. 

“Let me die where I am,” he had said once or twice with a fret- 
ful impatience; but now he turned his head sharply on the pillow. 

“The south of Hungary?” he repeated. “What baths do you 
mean?” 

“Sulphur-baths,” said the second doctor; “but as I said before, 
sulphur is, in my humble opinion — ” 

“What is the name of those baths?” asked Adalbert, fixing his 
eyes on the doctor, 

“The baths of Hercules.” 

“The baths of Hercules!” echoed the sick man, speaking as if in 
a dream. “ The baths of Hercules ! Yes, I remember them; I have 
been there.” 

But the war between sulphur and iron, between Baden-Baden and 
Aix-la-Chapelle, was raging so hotly round the patient’s bed that no 
one had time to attend to his words. 

“I remember — yes, I remember,” the sick man repeated, with 
eyes that were shining and fixed, as though he were looking at the 
memories, so far off, which were crowding back on his mind. “ Let 
me go there. I think that there I should get well.” 

That niglit in his sleep Adalbert Mohr moved restlessly, and in 
his dreams a black hole yawned, and ivy crept around it. 

From that day forward the house and the sick-room became alive 
with discussion, and the family entered on a period of restless inde- 
cision. The centre of discussion, and the cause of indecision, was 
the choice of the watering-place which was to restore to Adalbert 
the use of his crippled limbs. Opinions were as numerous as the 
friends consulted. Personal experiences poured in on all sides, un- 
fortunately of a perplexingly conflicting nature. One old gentle- 
man asserted with savage persistence that he had known another 
old gentleman wdio, in the April of the last year, had been carried 
to Pystian, forty miles, in a litter, speechless with pain, and crippled 
in all his joints, and who, in the June of the same year, had with- 
out the slightest inconvenience walked up a mountain five thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea; and on the same day that he 


42 


THE WATERS OP IIERCtTLES. 


came down again, put all men over twenty to tlie blush in the ball- 
room. 

“Think of what I was last year, and look at me now!” said a 
bachelor acquaintance of the family, sounding the trumpet for Ro- 
hitsch, in Styria. As none of the family had happened to see him 
last year, and as there was nothing very striking to notice about 
him now except a decided limp in the left leg, this argument some- 
what missed its effect. 

Griifenberg was, by several enthusiastic ladies, declared to have 
cured hundreds, and, by one sceptical gentleman, hinted to have 
killed as many thousands. Whenever Doctor No. 1 mentioned Ba- 
den, Doctor No. 2 laughed; when No. 2 talked of Teplitz, No. 1 
smiled ; both, however, agreed that Aix-la-Chapelle, as suggested by 
No. 3, was not to be thought of for a moment; and he, in return, 
raised his eminent shoulders at both Teplitz and Baden. The only 
point on which 1, 2, and 3 were unanimous and unshaken, was the ab- 
surdity, not to say the insanity, of the patient’s whim concerning 
the far-off Hercules Waters. 

For throughout all these contradictory opinions, counsels, testi- 
monials, and anecdotes Adalbert Mohr persistently held to his first 
inspiration. No one recounted anecdotes about the Hercules Baths, 
for no one had ever been there. The few acquaintances who were 
aware of the existence of the place, believed in a general way that 
it w^as beautiful, but were of opinion that nobody in their senses 
would go to the confines of civilization to see a beautiful place. 
Better informed people declared that it was a nest of robbers, and 
exposed to every possible bodily peril, and more particularly so in 
the present disorganized state of the Roumanian and Servian ar- 
mies. “If you escape the robbers you will be eaten by bears,” 
somebody said by way of dissuasion. But Adalbert reflected that 
if he could only be well enough to get within reach of a bear, he 
would be satisfied to run the risk of the eating. “I will either go 
to the Hercules Waters or I will die where I am,” he repeated with 
morbid persistence. 

It was a sick man’s fancy, everybody said ; and they soothed and 
humored him, as one W'ould humor a child with the measles wdio 
cried for his playthings. But no child had ever cried for his play- 
things with this perseverance. Adalbert, usually so practical and 
so sober-minded, could not be made to understand the difficulties 
and the risk of this long and troublesome journey. After a time 
the family began reluctantly to consider that sick men’s fancies 
sometimes work their cure. Men on their death-beds have been 
known to ask for a bottle of champagne, and to come back to life 
as soon as they have swallowed it. Might not the Hercules Waters, 
considered as a bottle of champagne, accomplish this same miracle? 

While matters were still in this undecided state, there occurred 
one day a short and stormy scene, a sort of verbal duel, between 
Grctchen and Anna Komers, the subject of which was one destined 
apparently to imbitter the peace of Gretchen’s days— to wit, the 
family lawyer. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


43 


Anna possessed a fair amount of average intellect, and yet her 
mind was incapable of grasping the simple fact that her brother 
Vincenz was a man with failings and virtues crossing each other — 
in all respects a man like his fellow-creatures. She loved to scold 
him, adoring him all the time; but if any one had ventured to hold 
up to him a reproving finger, the old maid would have turned into 
a catamountain and flown at the enemy’s throat. As to the con- 
tingency of a woman who had the chance of marrying him refusing 
to avail herself of that chance, the idea was pure madness to her. 
She had assured her brother to his face that a refusal was her most 
devout hope; but when this hope was fulfilled, a sort of stupefied 
disbelief took the place of the expected satisfaction, while upon the 
disbelief there followed a fever of burning indignation. The sever- 
est self-restraint was necessary to keep her silent, even during the 
first weeks of the Mohrs’ affliction; and it was with all the bitter- 
ness of a long pent-up grievance that, finding herself alone with 
Gretchen one day, she burst out at last, without preface or preamble, 

‘ ‘ Ah, Friiulein Mohr, have you no remorse for what you have 
done? Have you no feeling at all for my noble brother?” 

“What have I done?” asked Gretchen, coldly, but turning rath- 
er pale. 

“ What have you done? Why, you have ruined his existence — is 
that nothing to have done? And such a life to have ruined! Such 
a man to have lost!” 

But Gretchen was already recovering from the sudden attack. 

“Friiulein Komers,” she said, straightening her slight figure, and 
knitting her finely pencilled eyebrows in displeasure, “I really do 
not see what right you have to call me to account?” 

“And I dare say you did not see either what right he had to pro- 
pose to you? I told him he was a fool to do it. It was the narrow- 
est escape he ever had in his life, and I thank Heaven for it!” 

“ Then,” said Gretchen, seizing her advantage, “you should thank 
me too; for it stands to reason that — ” 

“Thankful? Did I ever say I was thankful?” cried Anna Ko- 
mers, beginning dimly to see that her arguments were not convert- 
ible, and that she could not both run with the hare and hunt with 
the hounds. “It is you who should be thankful for the love of 
such a man! Oh, you may shrug your shoulders now, but you 
will find out his value some day, when it is too late perhaps. I dare 
say you have heard me talk of Barbara Bitterfreund. She would 
not make such a mistake as you have made. ” 

Gretchen had heard of Barbara Bitterfreund as of an unprepos- 
sessing old maid, and she smiled a little at an unconscious compar- 
ison between herself and that middle-aged female. 

“She has written a very superior pamphlet upon the prospects 
of lady-dentists,” Anna was saying triumphantly, “and has translat- 
ed some works from the QiQok — several works; just the sort of 
woman to be an intelligent companion to my brother.” 

“Then if your brother thinks so, what prevents his marrying her?” 

“What prevents him ?” broke out Anna anew; “ why, it is you 


44 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


who prevent him. Have you ever come across a man who knows 
what is good for him? Ah, Fraulein Mohr, what have you done? 
and how could you do it? What possible reasons could move you 
to such — such folly?” 

“ Enough that I had my reasons.” 

‘ ‘ And not difficult to guess either. But what, after all, is the dif- 
ference of a few years, when such a man is in the question ? He is 
not old at all, though he may be double your age; I defy you to find 
a single gray hair in his beard.” 

“I see that you misunderstand both me and my motives entirely,” 
said Gretchen, with rising temper. “ It is not because your brother 
happens to be double my age that I refused him. A man might be 
three times my age, and have all the hairs in his beard gray, if only 
he had also — ” 

“Also what?” asked Anna, breathlessly. 

“ The— necessary qualifications for a husband.” 

“And what may those be?” was the sneerirg question. 

“You would not like to hear them.” 

“ Oh, pray, do not spare me!” 

“Position and fortune, said Gretchen, shortly. 

Anna gave a rather hysterical laugh. “Worldly advantages, you 
mean 1” she cried, raising her thin hands in consternation. 

“Yes, worldly advantages,” repeated Gretchen, with the most ex- 
asperating calmness. “Do you not see the case, Fraulein Komers? 
It is simply that I am poor and ambitious. ” 

“Mercenary, that is to say.” 

Gretchen smiled an enraging smile. “Well,” she said, with a 
great distinctness of utterance, and a wicked pleasure in the horror 
she was provoking, “call it mercenary if you like; / call it practi- 
cal. But we need not quarrel about names; the fact remains the 
same ; I am poor, and I mean to make my fortune. ” 

“That is, sell yourself to Mammon!” nearly shrieked Anna Ko- 
mers. “You have the — the unblushingness to say it?” 

“ I have the courage to say it — yes;” and Gretchen gracefully in- 
clined her fair head in acquiescence. The almost terror-stricken 
expression of Anna’s features was only an additional inducement to 
paint herself far blacker than she really was. There was no shrink- 
ing in the fearless glance of the clear gray eyes, no wavering in 
the steadiness of the smile whieh parted the rose-tinted lips. 

“So young and so untender!” thought poor Anna, staring at the 
lovely face before her with feelings that baffied all description. 

“Ah,” she broke out, after a minute of stupefied silence, “if those 
are j' our sentiments, if those are your thoughts, I do not wonder any 
longer at the cruelty which broke my brother’s heart ; for his heart 
is broken— he will never recover it, never! Oh, poor Vincenz, my 
poor Vincenz!” 

“Fraulein Komers,” said Gretchen, calmly, “we are neither of 
us children, and so we can neither of us seriously believe in broken 
hearts. Such romantic fancies can surely only belong to the very 
earliest and most foolish period of youth.” 


THE WATEllS OF HERCULES. 


45 ‘ 


“In which you now stand,” retorted Anna, with sudden excite- 
ment, “or you would not talk of things about which you know 
nothing as yet.” 

“And never wish to know anything either. Tell me the truth, 
Frauleiu Komers; have you ever seen a broken heart, except set in 
verses, and bound in morocco leather?” 

“I have,” said Anna, becoming all at once very quiet, and her 
shrill voice dropping into a lower key. 

“ What! do you mean to say that you believe in broken hearts?” 

“ And you mean to say you do not?” 

A disdainful gesture was the only answer. 

“Not even,” faltered Anna — “not even when I tell you that I — 
that my own heart has been broken?” She was trembling, and her 
eyes had grown dim. 

The smile on Gretchen’s lips faded ; and for more than a minute 
these two women sat and faced each other in silence. So this, 
thought Gretchen, was a woman with a broken heart; here was a 
living specimen of that which poets talked of in verses, and which 
she had never thought to come across in real life. She did not 
choose to display this new-born curiosity in an open gaze, but from 
under the shelter of her eyelashes Gretchen was contemplating Anna 
Komers with a quite new attention. She examined the woman with 
the broken heart as she might have examined some fabulous crea- 
tion— a unicorn or a sea-serpent, for instance — which had suddenly 
taken shape before her eyes. It struck her that, after all, a woman 
with a broken heart does not look so very different from a woman 
with a whole heart ; but nevertheless there was a question rising to 
her lips — “ How did it happen? What broke your heart?” Fortu- 
nately she checked herself in time. As she did not believe in bro- 
ken hearts, it stood to reason that she could take no interest in the 
recording of so preposterous a history. Her own curiosity provoked 
her; and for fear of another such impulse, she hastened to end this 
painful pause. 

“I know very well,” she began, in a voice much more subdued 
than her former tone — “I know very well that there is a great deal 
of such talk in the world, and that people often make themselves 
unhappy about — about these sort of things; but I am not afraid for 
myself — I am not the sort of girl who will ever fall in love and break 
her heart.” 

“Because you have no heart to break,” flared up Anna, with a 
double return of bitterness after' that soft moment. She had not 
read anything of what had passed in Gretchen’s mind. She knew 
only that she had been on the verge of a confidence, and that her 
confidence had been tacitly rejected. “Oh, I never understood you 
before, but I understand you now. I thank Heaven again that poor 
Vincenz is free. He is a thousand times too good for you.” 

“Then he is better without me.” 

‘ ‘ Of course he is better without you, and he will come to see it 
soon enough. I dare say he will have quite got over it by this day 
year; and then Barbara Bitter — ” 


46 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Anna’s phrase never got beyond this; a timely interruption had 
intervened, and the baffled sister had beaten her retreat. Neither 
did the weeks that followed bring her a second such opportunity, 
for it was a time of disturbance and business. Every one’s thoughts 
were occupied, and every one’s hands were full ; and it was only on 
a late day in April that Gretchen could snatch a spare hour wherein 
to answer at last that long-unanswered letter of Belita’s. There were 
two pages devoted to Adalbert’s illness, and one to the new aspect 
of the Draskocs affair. “My turn of fortune may be coming too,” 
she wrote exultantly, “ even if in a different way from yours. Just 
think of Draskocs becoming ours! for the lawsuit must end some 
day. How rich we shall be! What splendid fortunes we shall have, 
my brother Kurt and I!” On a farther page she wrote, 

“So 3^011 have no objection to yom fiitui' except his height? I 
don’t like short men much ; a man can never be too tall. May I ask 
a question? Is he very fond of you, Belita? Does he tell you so 
often? Does he say that there is only one woman in the world for 
him, and that j'ou are that woman? 

“Where are you going for your honey-moon — I mean wedding- 
tour? honey-moon is a ridiculous expression. Could j^ou not come 
to— ah! for now I must give you my news. Belita, I am so happy 
that I can scarcely steady mj^ pen. A tremendous resolution has 
been arrived at to-day. At last — at last poor papa has borne down 
all opposition, has wearied out all objections. No dusty streets for 
us this summer, no dustier public gardens ; no barrel-organs, no rat- 
tling carriages, no baking pavement. I shall not have to watch the 
airing of those carpets opposite, of whose very pattern I am sick. 
What shall I see instead? I hardly know. 1 have no idea what to 
expect; for this day week we start for the Hercules Waters!” 


CHAPTER VII. 

ON THE WING. 

“So be it mine (thine equal now) 

With thee to see what eagles see, 

With thee to know what eagles know, 

What eagles feel to feel with thee !” — Loed Lvtton. 

Not since autumn leaves fell had the air been so pure or the sky 
so blue as in this May mid-day hour; and the eagle on the cliff drank 
in the air, and gazed at the sun in the blue May sky, and his eagle 
heart swelled with the pride of eagle glory. When last May’s sun 
had shone the eagle had been a downy fledgling, sharing the nest 
on the rocky ledge with two brother fledglings. Where were those 
brothers now? the soft eaglets who had huddled together to keep 
each other warm, who had craned their necks side by side to peep 
over the rocky ledge at the wonderful world below? Where was 
the earnest, anxious father eagle who had watched for them, and the 
mother Avho had crammed such delicate morsels of murdered liare 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


47 


or fresh-killed squirrel down their throats, and who had gorged them 
lovingly with the legs and wings of tenderer and downier fledglings 
torn from the nests of weaker birds? 

Alas ! alas ! even an eagle’s family history can have its tragic pas- 
sage. One brother eaglet had peeped too far over the rocky ledge: 
the strongest, boldest eaglet, the pride of the parent birds, he had 
been; but they could not save him, though they swooped down round 
him with their sharp despairing cry, as he tumbled from rock to 
rock, flapping his useless wings; and before he reached the bottom 
— while the two surviving fledglings were spreading themselves 
more comfortably in the now roomy nest above — the useless wings 
had ceased to flap. The other brother eaglet had flown out into the 
world long since— soft down had stiffened into strong feathered 
pinions; and this young king now loosens his hold on the cliff he 
grasps, and spreading his giant wings, with a whir, and a flap, and 
a rush of the air, sails forth into the May sunshine. What recks he 
of his brothers, alive or dead, or of the parents who hatched him 
out of a dull gray shell? The parents are hatching other dull gray 
eggs now, and have forgotten the very memory of the luckless fledg- 
ling who broke his neck through his own rashness. 

The eagle, slowly sailing with wide majestic flaps, has shaken off 
all care. Is he not a king of birds in the first dawn of his beautiful 
strength? He wants no support but his firm pinions. An eagle’s 
family ties are not of a lasting nature; he would not know his 
mother if he met her, nor would he hesitate to measure his strength 
against that of his father should they chance to fall out over the 
carcass of a new-born lamb, or if there arose a question of possession 
regarding a fat carp, fresh and dripping from the river. What de- 
light more glorious than to gaze into the sun uudazzled, to live on 
peaks where no human foot can ever tread, to circle in wide curves, 
with the keen air ruffling his feathers ; while far, far below the great 
river crawls, and a black speck, with a trail of smoke floating from 
it, creeps slowly along? The eagle knows that speck well. Specks 
like that creep daily d^own the river, or come up the river, creeping 
more slowly still. The eagle never sees that speck without feeling 
thankful that he has been born an eagle and not a man. Pain and 
toil are the only means by which those poor wingless creatures can 
work their way from place to place, while he has but to raise his 
pinions and cleave the air at will. 

To the fisherman who lives alone in the hut at the cliff’s foot that 
speck with the trail of smoke is familiar too — the only link which 
makes him feel as if he belonged to the outer world; only that to 
him it is not a speck, but a large black monster, pufflng gray smoke 
from its grimy chimney, and lashing the water to foam with its 
flanks. In the dusk, when he steps from his hut into his boat to 
throw out his nets for the night, that monster has rushed past him 
with fiery eyes; and in the cold dawn, when he goes out with 
numbed fingers to draw them in, the spirit of that same monster has 
seemed to flit past him like a ghost. He has stood watching the 
half-defined phantom through the gray mists of morning, while he 


48 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


pulled at the net on which his livelihood depends. He knows by 
the first tug what his luck for the day is going to be. He can tell 
by the mere weight on his fingers what number of shining Danube 
trout or sleek carps will presently be drawn in a wriggling silver 
mass into the boat — so experienced, so unconsciously sensitive have 
those poor, rugged, work-worn fingers become. Ten fish more or 
less is a question with the fisherman. It may mean luxury in the 
shape of an extra pull of mcMn (brandy), or a fuller pipe of tobacco ; 
or else it may mean deprivation of his usual allowance of black 
bread, no breakfast, and a meagre supper. The fisherman at the 
bottom of the cliff has lived so long in his hut built of branches and 
mud, and has thrown out and drawn in his nets for so many con- 
secutive evenings and mornings, that there is no other interest con- 
ceivable for him except the interest of counting his fish. He could 
have understood no other form of excitement ; that, for instance, of 
gamblers and speculators, whose fingers tremble as they number out 
the coins they have won. He has never seen gold, except in the 
heart of a mountain flower, or in the west of the sky when the sun 
was setting. A pile of ducats would have raised no wish in his 
breast, for they would have conveyed no impression to his mind ; he 
would much rather have had a pile of fish. Fishing is the one form 
of gambling which exists for him; fish are his nourishment and his 
trade. It is a wonder he is not grown into a fish himself. If he 
was not half a fish, he might love the lonely hut which stood with 
its back to the straight, precipitous rock, and with its face looking 
out across the water, its threshold to be reached only from the boat. 
Had he not built it with his own hands — carrying the fresh branches 
in his boat, and standing in his boat as he built, since the spot was 
not to be reached in any other way? It must have been long ago 
that the branches were green, for now they are bare, dry wood ; but 
strong enough still to keep out the rain and the wind. The fisher- 
man at the bottom of the cliff may be as happy as any of the people 
in the steamer; and yet the people in the steamer, getting a fugitive 
glimpse of him, think him the most lonely of mankind. 

Everything depends on the point of view from which we look at 
it. Now the fisherman never looked at the eagle at all, though they 
lived in the same wilderness; and the eagle only looked at the fish- 
erman as a usurper who was robbing him of his rightful prey. The 
fish, if they had any point of view, probably thought it made no 
difference whether they were caught by the man or by the bird. 

To the eagle and to the fisherman the steamer is a familiar thing 
— a different thing according to their separate points of view, but 
still familiar. To the people on the steamer— to many of them at 
least — both the eagles and the fisherman are new. 

There are many people on the steamer to-day, and much variety 
in the contrasts they present— the usual medley to be found on ev- 
ery lower Danube steamer. The most conspicuous, because the 
most unusual, figure here to - day is a tall, stiff, middle-aged man, 
who has not spoken to any of his fellow-passengers, but who, as ev- 
erybody knows, or instinctively feels, is an Englishman. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


49 


Nobody but an Englishman could travel with so many different 
sorts of portmanteaus, and with such an unlimited choice of rail- 
way-rugs; nobody but an Englishman would guard that long thin 
bundle (which must be a fishing-rod) with such stern yet tender 
care; and nobody but an Englishman could consult his red guide- 
book regarding the beauties of the lower Danube, when he might 
be looking at the beauties themselves. No wonder he is conspicuous 
when compared with the figures around him, just as any one of 
those figures would be conspicuous anywhere else — hook-nosed 
Jewish merchants, fiery-eyed Hungarians, straight-featured Greeks, 
white-cloaked Circassians, with their long guns slung on their shoul- 
ders, a ragged but inexpressibly serene Turk smoking his chibouk 
under an improvise tent of carpets, and keeping an eye upon the 
harem with which he is travelling. The modest allowance of wives 
he has found good to take with him are, for the greater safety of 
the passengers’ morals, dressed, or rather smothered, in coarse linen 
sacks, in which a few slits are cut in order to supply the necessary 
amount of oxygen, and leaving a passage for the small and fragrant- 
ly steaming coffee-cup which repeatedly finds its way to their invis- 
ible lips. There is the sound of a plaintive fiddle coming from a 
corner of the deck, where a gypsy player is plying his bow. Here 
on the ground lies a bundle, the personal luggage of that fat Greek 
merchant, who calls it his travelling-rug, and probably considers it 
a rather shabby rug, but which, in virtue of its fleecy texture and 
blue - green shades, would create a furor in any English drawing- 
room. All over the deck there are touches of color, and slight but 
unmistakable revelations of habits, which make you wonder wheth- 
er you are still in Europe. There are amber mouth-pieces to long 
pipes, strings of coral on a woman’s neck, sheepskin fur on a peas- 
ant’s back, as many turbans and fe^es as hats and bonnets. At one 
end of the deck a perfect hillock of brilliant pillows is stocked, the 
property of some provident family changing quarters. Behind this 
brilliant mountain sits ensconced the middle-aged Englishman afore- 
named. 

The captain of the steamer, walking hurriedly to the front for the 
purpose of superintending the steering at a dangerous turn of the 
river, has to pass between the pillows and the Englishman. The 
Englishman looks up from his guide - book, and asks, in very bad 
German, “Where is the rock they call Babakei?” 

The captain, besides being in a hurry, is rather short-tempered, 
and explains impatiently that Babakei has been passed some time 
ago — a tall bare stone standing by itself in the water — a very nasty 
point to pass at night. There is a legend about it, too. 

Yes, the Englishman knows all about the legend of the pretty 
Turkish woman, carried off by an audacious Hungarian, and being 
recaptured, left exposed on the rock in the river, while her captors, 
sailing off, called back mockingly, Baba]cei!''—\hiii is, “Repent.” 
The Englishman knows all this, but he has unfortunately missed 
seeing the stone while he was occupied in reading about it. 

The captain passes on, and the Englishman resumes his reading, 

4 


50 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


being so much engrossed in a description of the Danube cataracts 
and the perils attendant on their passage, that he scarcely notices a 
slight swaying in the movement of the steamer. Having completely 
mastered the subject, he looks up again, and sees the captain return- 
ing the same way he came, only in a more leisurely manner, with 
his hands in his pockets. 

The Englishman asks politely whether the captain wdll kindly 
point out the cataracts. 

“ Just got out of them, thank Heaven!” says the captain, with less 
temper this time; “and very nasty they were to-day; have not seen 
them so rapid for long. It will be all plain sailing after this.” 

The Englishman is much distressed at having missed the cataracts, 
and expresses his regret in worse German than he used before. 

“We were just getting into the thick of them,” says the captain, 
“at the time you asked me about Babakei.” 

“And Trajan’s Hoad, which they tell me is about here?” 

It appears that the beginning of Trajan’s Hoad has just been miss- 
ed while the Englishman has been inquiring about the cataracts. 
After this he comes to the conclusion that it would be better to read 
the descriptions in the guide-book later, and to look about him in 
the mean time. 

And now it requires all his British calmness to suppress a long- 
drawn “Ah!” of wonder, so sudden and so vivid is the revelation of 
the scene around him. 

Here is Servia on one side and Hungary on the other ; straight cliffs 
with craggy ledges high up, their points and hollows almost out of 
eyesight, their sharp-cut eyes streaked with broad veins of red stone. 
Then"^ in cver-recurring succession, wmoded slopes, which slant down 
to the water’s edge, opening now and then to reveal the glimpse of a 
narrow creek winding off into a valley, steep -sided, and all clothed 
wdth young beech and clustering hazel-nut bushes. 

On the Hungarian side there is but little life: now and then, at long 
intervals, a mass of white with a steeple, wdiich means a village; 
now and then something alive moving along the road, which means 
a cart; here and there a speck at the water’s edge, wdiicli means a 
human being. On the Servian side there is less life still. No vil- 
lages here, not even single houses; nothing in the way of a human 
habitation, except lonely watch-towers planted on the hills, with 
wide intervals between; and more rarely still, a fisherman’s hut, 
where the sun catches the light on the wet nets hung out to dry, 
and where large pieces of roughly cured fish are stuck about upon 
wooden stakes, bearing at this distance a ghastly resemblance to the 
heads of murdered men. 

With one hand on his fishing-rod and the other on the brim of his 
flapping wide-awake, the Englishman stood and gazed at the shift- 
ing scene; at the wmods where the lowest trees dipped their branches 
in the water, and where the highest rocks seemed to run their heads 
against the very door of heaven ; at the bold outline of some pro- 
truding cliff, and at the lonely peaks, so far above, which the wild 
birds of prey have all to themselves. A few days ago he had be- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


51 


lieved that there cotild not he anything more beautiful than the Rhine ; 
hut now, as he recalls the trim vineyards, the well -perched ruins 
(whether real or artificial) smiling down with such perfect self-satis- 
faction at their own images in tlie water; at the life and the bright- 
ness of picturesque peasants at work, tying up graceful vine ten- 
drils, it all seems prettily weak, amiably conventional, beside this 
rugged and wild loneliness of the Danube. The endless change 
which feeds the eye there, the constant succession of neatly framed 
pictures, falls flat beside the grand monotony here, where each tower- 
ing rock is like the other, yet each beautiful, and where you only 
see, perchance, some dark-faced Oriental frowning at you with sul- 
len brow from under his faded turban. 

Not one of these things had escaped the eyes of Gretchen Mohr; 
she had studied the cataracts, passed judgment on Trajan’s Road, 
catalogued the fishermen, and registered the eagles. But now she 
was weary of them all, and it was with a heartfelt “At last !” that 
she greeted the sight of the pier. At last the end of their week- 
long wanderings was approaching. Tortuous are the paths, and 
questionable the conveyances, by which alone the Hercules Baths 
can be reached. The Mohrs had spent quite as much time in wait- 
ing-rooms as in railway carriages; had shivered on piers quite as 
often as they had been suffocated in cabins; they had slept in dirty 
inns, and had lived on strange and unknown food, had been cheated 
by railway officials and misguided by railway guides, until Gretchen 
had begun to think that the Hercules Baths were a myth. 

The pier was as crowded and as lively as the steamer itself. A 
great number of men and boys, scantily dressed in dirty linen, wear- 
ing leather belts which almost reached their arm-pits, their feet curi- 
ously swaddled in checked flannel rags, stood grouped at the edge : 
their savage appearance and ferocious glances were not calculated 
to re-assure an ignorant passenger, who might well be excused if he 
thought himself in presence of one of the wild robber-bands of this 
mountain country. 

Tlie moment of landing was one of inextricable confusion. The 
Englishman appeared disturbed in his mind. He asked the person 
next him whether the “Iron Gates ’’have been passed or not, and 
was told that they lay farther down. 

“You will see them in your book,” said a young Hungarian, 
jocosely. 

The Englishman was not in a humor for jests. He had quickly 
given up the idea of the Iron Gates, and in very good English was 
requesting everybody not to press against his fishing-rod, exclaim- 
ing at the same time that it was a rod of Farlow’s make. 

The savage half-naked men and boys suddenly disclosed themselves 
as porters, by seizing upon every available article of luggage and rush- 
ing off headlong in various directions, regardless of proprietorship, 
the great object apparently being to disi:)erse the portmanteaus and 
boxes with the least possible delay. The mountain of pillows on 
deck was levelled with magical rapidity; the Englishman’s fishing- 
rod was wrenched out of his hand, and carried away in triumph 


62 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


through the crowd. There was an interval of uproarious confusion, 
of jostling and bustling, of hand-to-hand fighting wuth the porters, 
and unsuceessful bargaining with the drivers, and then at last the 
Mohrs found themselves on" their way up the valley, while the con- 
fusion of tongues behind them grew fainter every moment. 

Here there was peaceful green on all sides, and a giant vegetation 
bordering the very edge of the road. The D jernis river rushed along 
with much splashing and frothing and musical murmur. Now the 
road hung over it, and the travellers could plunge their eyes straight 
into its pools and eddies; now the river was far off, apparently just 
winding out of sight — but it was always there, a running accom- 
paniment to the drive. Gretchen stared and stared about her — at 
the steep hill-sides, at the scraps of sprouting corn planted on such 
tiny ledges, at the spring fiowers which thickly carpeted every green 
spot, at the bushes heavy with twining blossoms, at the lights and 
shadows of the fresh May evening. 

The valley was quite silent, except for the bells on the harness of 
their small team, and the everlasting rushing of the Djernis. At every 
turn they seemed to be leaving all signs of human life farther and 
farther behind them ; only at long intervals a solitary peasant wom- 
an would trudge past them, with coins glittering on her neck, her 
red -fringe apron giving her the appearance of some wandering 
flower of tropical size and brilliancy. 

They had been driving for three hours, but the sun was not yet 
set; for the mountain-tops still bore a yellow flush, though down in 
the deep valley the air was chill with the breath of evening. 

Was it in this wilderness that they were seeking the Hercules 
Baths? Would not the ever-deepening and ever-narrowing valley 
close at last before them and block their passage? 

Some such question was rising to Gretchen ’s lips when the car- 
riage rattled over a bridge, and in another minute she saw houses on 
both sides, as with a jerk they drew up in the centre of the Her- 
cules Baths. 

Three or four gigantic white buildings loomed chill and mon- 
strous through the dusk. Any European capital might have been 
proud of possessing them. How, then, had these giants of civiliza- 
tion been dropped into this wild valley? The rampart of the hills 
rose straight behind them, and below a fountain splashed, and the 
stone Hercules leaned motionless on his club. 

“The Hercules Baths at last!” said Adalbert, with a sigh of min- 
gled bitterness and hope. The bitterness was for the past, the hope 
was for the future. When last he had looked upon these mountains 
he had had both youth and strength. 

The Waters of Hercules, which have cured so many crippled men, 
why should they not give back to him some of his lost strength? 
But his lost youth nothing can evermore restore. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


53 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE VALLEY-GOD. 

“ . . . denn sehr ^eliebt voii den Gottern 

Wohnen wir weit abvUrts.”— Voss’s Odyssey. 

WnEN the Romans— -so says Roumanian tradition — wearied with 
the conquest of the world, began to sigh after rest and refresliment, 
it was to the valley of Hercules they came to seek it. Here, to heal 
their wounds and strengthen their enfeebled limbs, they passed three 
days and three nights sitting up to their necks in the hot sulphur- 
springs — a proceeding, let it be parenthetically observed, which 
would have meant certain death to anything short of an ancient 
Roman. But an antique constitution could defy anything, it seems; 
for on the third day of this memorable bath, the heroes, emerging 
from the sulphur waves, found that they had not only regained their 
former strength, but had doubled and quadrupled it. Their muscles 
were iron, their blood was fire; and in the drunkenness of their new- 
born life they cried aloud, “What enemy is strong enough to be 
worthy of our sword? Behold, all countries of the earth are tram- 
pled, let us measure our strength with Heaven !” 

In spite, however, of the sulphur-springs, the war between Rome 
and Heaven proved unequal; and the conquerors of the world, re- 
peating the angels’ fall, lost not only the battle with Heaven, but 
their possessions upon earth as w6ll. And thus, according to the 
Roumanian peasant’s theory, the Hercules Waters caused the fall of 
Rome. 

Notwithstanding this magnificent failure, the sulphur-springs to 
this day retain power enough to do almost anything, except raising 
man to the level of a god — so, at least, say the people of the coun- 
try; and it must be confessed that in the lonely depth of that valley, 
penetrated with its wildness, intoxicated by its beauty, even a stranger 
feels inclined to share the half-superstitious and almost adoring awe 
with which the Roumanian peasant regards the “ sacred ” springs of 
Hercules. 

Some lingering trace of heathendom seems indeed still to hang 
about the valley. In this remote corner of the earth the ancient 
gods are not quite forgotten. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say 
that, though he has his blest medals and his relics, though he beats 
his breast and tells his beads, yet every peasant of the valley is at 
heart a little bit of an innocent pagan. He will never fail to sprinkle 
himself with holy water on leaving church ; yet, if the truth were 
known, the Ava Ilercului (Hercules Water), whose almost miracu- 
lous effects he daily sees, is to him the holier water of the two. He 


54 


THE WATEES OP HERCULES. 


will never forget to bend liis head low when he passes by a waj^side 
cross ; but— with uneonscious idol-worship— he bends it still lower 
when he passes by the stone Hercules, that stands like the guardian 
spirit of the place, and has stood here since the time of the Romans. 

Mythology and Christianity are inextricably jumbled up in the 
rustic mind; and though, practically, the valley inhabitants may be 
as good Christians as any peasants of any country, their idea of the 
Creator of the world is yet slightlj^ mixed up with their idea of the 
hero of the twelve great labors of antiquity. It is by his name that 
the men of the valley swear; it is with the fear of his club that the 
women of the valley silence their crying children. He is at once 
their patron and their bogy. 

“The god of the valley” is a phrase so current in the popular 
mouth, that even strangers adopt it ; and though they be enlight- 
ened enough to laugh at superstition, and learned enough to under- 
stand the chemical analysis of the Hercules Waters, yet unconscious- 
ly they slip into the habit of talking of the “ Sacred Springs.” 

Perhaps the deep shade, so seldom lifted from the valley, serves 
to feed this mysterious awe; for the hours of sunlight are short and 
rare. When Gretchen opened her eyes on the morning following 
their arrival, the forenoon was well advanced, and yet no sunbeam 
had reached the depth of the valley. The morning mist still lin- 
gered, weaving a soft chill bloom over everything. The sun will 
burn that bloom away when it has risen high enough to look over 
the mountains. The mountains ! How wonderful they were ! Gret- 
chen’s eyes rose towards them and hung there entranced. The pict- 
ure had a strange power of fascination: the cold shadowy valley, 
the mountains yellow with the morning sun, and towering so near 
as to shut out the sky. It might have been awful if it had not been 
so beautiful. 

I do not suppose that there is in Europe any watering-place of 
importance which compresses itself into such a limited space as the 
Baths of Hercules. The Baths of Hercules have had no choice in 
the matter; compression was unavoidable, for the simple reason that 
there was no more room in which to expand. Two rows of houses, 
forming a short street, is all that the width of the valley wdll allow 
of — the river Djernis filling up what remains in breadth. Most of 
these houses are old and shabby, but three of the buildings belong 
to a more modern date. The Cursalon, graceful and majestic, seems 
to press its Byzantine walls and elaborate roof straight against the 
rock behind, which falls in a sheer precipice from the mountain. On 
each side a sweep of covered arcade connects the Cursalon with a 
monster hotel. A tiny church stands as the last building of the min- 
iature town ; and when that is passed, there is nothing but solitude. 
The very road dies away, and the foot-path grows rougher, and the 
Djernis’s voice louder, the higher the explorer strays up the valley. 

This spot of earth seems to be connected with nothing else on 
earth: the beautiful wilderness is a kingdom by itself, and to the 
kingdom there is not wanting a king. A Hungarian of high family 
and large fortune was the present lord of the valley— or, to put it 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


55 


more plainly, Baron Istvan Tolnay was the tenant who held the 
place in lease direct from the hands of Government, and under whose 
sway every visitor and doctor, every hotel-keeper and restaurateur, 
found himself perforce placed. The “valley-king ” enjoyed a regard 
next only to that paid to the “valley -god and could the rustic 
conception of power and authority have been summed up in three 
words, the result would have been — Dumnedeu (the Lord God), Her- 
cules, and the Baron. 

“I shall certainly fall asleep if I sit still much longer,” said Gret- 
chen, on that first afternoon as they sat at the hotel window. One 
night’s rest had not been enough to make up for the many that had 
been lost, and the sound of the rushing river hummed in her ears 
like a lullaby. 

Ascelinde was not to be moved from her sofa; so contenting her- 
self with the escort of her brother Kurt, Gretchen started on her first 
journey of discovery. 

Kurt Mohr, be it here observed, was a rather strange specimen of 
humanity. Neither exactly a boy nor exactly a man, he had never 
really been the one nor was he yet the other, and yet he was both. 
His sixteenth birthday had been passed some months ago ; but though 
by his stature he might have been taken for less, in expression and 
manner he generally was taken for more. In frame he was short 
and somewhat thick-set, in face sallow and square-featured : there 
was no particle of his sister’s beauty about him ; the difference be- 
tween the two was the difference between a goblin and a fairy. But 
Kurt was not a goblin of the repulsive sort: a look of careless con- 
tentment sat forever on his face ; he had never been known to lose 
his temper, never been seen flurried, never was in a hurry, never was 
excited. Throughout the whole of the worries of travelling his 
contentment had remained unflawed ; no noise seemed to disturb 
him ; no dust could succeed in clinging to him ; no mid-day sun 
could heat him ; no sight betray him into an exclamation of wonder. 
With his hands in his pockets he had stared at each prospect in 
turn, and taken it all for granted. 

As he now walked down the valley beside Gretchen, he looked as 
cool and careless as if he had walked down precisely this same path 
every day for years past, and had contemplated this same prospect 
ever since he possessed eyesight. He took everything for granted — 
from the peasant women who carried their babies in wooden boxes 
on their backs to the mountain-ranges which obscured the sky. 

Brother and sister strayed into the small Curgarten, and from 
there into the covered arcades, where in the height of the season all 
shopping is done. Everything as yet bore the stamp of the open- 
ing season: most of the shops were still closed; some were entering 
on preparations; glass panes were being polished, and packing-cases 
opened. They looked into the Gursalon and saw a lofty space 
handsomely decorated in the Oriental style, and with piles of velvet 
chairs stowed into a corner. At the far end one puny youth in 
shirt-sleeves was languidly rubbing the floor with a cloth ; the sound 
of his steps echoed round and round the large apartment. The 


56 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


hotels seemed all to be breathing in a supply of fresh air for tlie 
summer ; every window was wide open ; within the bath - houses 
thermometer and shower-baths Avere being tested and put to riglits. 

Farther on the air was charged with sulphur-fumes; but when the 
last building was passed, and the loneliness of the valley gained, 
there were only the wild-flowers to scent the breeze. The foot-path 
ran on the top of the river-bank; and the noise and gurgling of the 
Avater was so great, that it seemed to fill the Avhole valley with its 
sound. The overhanging rocks re-echoed it, and the trees nodded 
in the wind as they bent to listen to it. They came to a bridge, and 
caught sight of a path winding up into the wood at the other side. 
Its tempting invitation AA^as not to be resisted. 

‘ ‘ Kurt, ” said Gretchen, “ if I thought there were no bears and wolves 
in that forest, I should go up at once ; it looks so beautiful there !” 

Kurt having expressed the greatest contempt for the bears and 
wolves suggested, the ascent was accordingly risked. 

It Avas indeed beautiful in the wood. From between the stones of 
the rugged pathway the maiden-hair and spleenAVort were beginning 
to peep in tiny, tender, green points; young brackens were uncoil- 
ing their crisp, brown rings; the lilac-bushes, growing wild, flung 
their fresh scent on the air, and clustered in colored masses against 
the young green of beech - trees, just bursting into perfect leaf. 
The branches of hawthorn and bramble, white with blossom, broke 
through the midst of green tangles and floated on each breath of 
air. A few late violets still lingered and hung their bleached heads, 
drooping in the shade of rising coAVslips, and fading beside the 
brightness of blue lobelia, which spread itself up and down the 
banks in gaudy patches. The Avild vine was only now beginning 
to spin fine threads round the branches on which it hung; soft green 
tendrils clung timidly Avhere still rustled the dry brown stalks, and 
here and there dangled a withered leaf of last year’s growth. Only 
the sober fir-trees, solitary among the beeches, had not thought of 
putting on summer garments ; tall they stood and dark, weil-nigh 
black, amid all the freshness of young flowers and bursting buds. 

It Avas beautiful, but it was silent; for silence is the peculiarity of 
these secluded forests. There Avas not a bird’s note in the whole 
height and depth of the woods, nor coming from the mountains 
around. There Avas no chirrup and flutter to tell you of a thrush 
family learning to fly, nor any cry of an anxious parent-bird ; there 
was no blackbird flying up startled from its nest in the hawthorn- 
bush. It Avas all a death-like silence; only the rush of the Djernis 
down there, turned to a far-off murmur here, and the rattle which a 
squirrel made high above Gretchen’s head, as sloAvly she climbed 
the steep path. 

In this country the people explain everything by legends ; and the 
peasant of the Hercules valley has a legend to account for the silence 
of his woods. Once the valley not only had songsters, but such 
wonderful songsters that their voices attracted the attention of the 
gods and aAvakened their jealousy. “We have nothing like that in 
Olympus,” they said ; and having apparently a taste for good music, 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


57 


they robbed the feathered musicians for their own service and de- 
light. But the gods had reckoned without their host; soon there 
arose in the valley music of another sort. The cries of the deprived 
people were so piercing that they quite prevailed over the birds in 
Olympus; and in order to pacify the screamers and enjoy their or- 
chestra in peace, the gods caused the Djernis river to flow, and gave 
it a voice of musical sweetness. 

More learned but less poetical people account for the want of sink- 
ing-birds by the injurious effects of the sulphur-steams. To this 
latter theory, as being the more logical of the two, Gretchen would 
probably have agreed. But the want of birds did not strike her; for 
she had never been in a wood before, and even a wood without birds 
was enchantment enough. She did not stay long on the path; the 
first clump of cowslips on which her eyes fell was inducement 
enough to leave it. She returned with her hands half full ; she went 
off again for a branch of pink-and- white hawthorn ; she broke her 
w'ay through the bushes back to the path ; but just then the sun- 
light, which fell slanting into the wood, had touched a drooping 
head of lilac, melting it into liquid color, and Gretchen felt that she 
must have that lilac. She reached it and tore it down; but there 
were more slanting sunbeams, and they fell throukh the branches 
upon other lilacs, and upon yellow cowslips, which under their 
touch glowed into living gold; and they bronzed the uncurling 
brackens, and speckled the moss, until Gretchen, wandering on from 
bush to bush, and always meaning to turn back and never doing so, 
stood still at last with both her hands full, and looked around her in 
perplexity, wondering where the path could be. 

“Kurt!” she called out; “Kurt, where are you?” and then she 
stood still and listened. 

The bushes rustled, and Kurt appeared with his hands in his pockets. 

“ Kurt, havoiyou a notion where the path is?” 

“ Not the faintest.” ' 

“We cannot have lost our way,” said Gretchen ; “it stands to rea- 
son that the path is close at hand, but I am not going to look for it 
till I have rested.” 

Gretchen, as she spoke, threw down her armful of flowers and sat 
down beside them on the sloping bank. ■ Her hair had got loosened 
as she broke through the bushes ; it floated over her shoulders like 
a veil of gold; a head of white hawthorn had been caught in the 
silken net, and hung there a willing prisoner. 

Gretchen drew a long breath of the evening air, and half uncon- 
ciously she sank back upon the bank. It made such a luxurious 
couch, and the loose sheaf of flowers she had gathered was such a 
soft pillow for her head. She put up her hands and clasped them 
behind her neck, and lay staring up into the branches and the quiv- 
ering leaves overhead. 

“You look like a large babe in a wood,” remarked Kurt, crouch- 
ing on the ground and pulling up an ivy-trail with his fingers. 

“ Leave me in peace,” was the drowsy remonstrance. 

“So I shall, presently,” said Kurt, throwing the ivy- trail across 


58 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


his sister, and looking up at the nearest beech-tree with the eye of a 
connoisseur, as if marking its most favorable points of attack. There 
was a long silence before he spoke again. 

“You are not going to sleep, are you?” he asked, showering a 
handful of anemone heads over Grctchen. 

“Oh no,” she murmured, in luxurious drowsiness. “What are 
you throwing at me? What have you put. round my arms? Can- 
not you leave me alone?” She stirred her arm and heard some 
leaves rustling. Kurt was laughing in his impish way ; but her eye- 
lids were too heavy to raise themselves. 

It was so pleasant to lie here — the moss so soft — the trees rustling 
— or was it the Djernis? 

It did not matter which, for Gretchen was asleep. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 

“There she lay, and was so beantiful that he could not turn away his e3'es; and 
he could not help himself, hut beut down and gave her a kiss. And scarcely had 
he kissed her than she opened her eyes.”— Giumm’s Fairy Tales. 

The coffee-house and restaurant in the old street of the Hercules 
Baths had not slept through the winter, like the Cursalon and the 
big modern hotels. It lived through the cold months in a state of 
half torpor, blinking its open eyes at the many shut eyes around it. 
When the whole valley is bound in ice, and when each tree up the 
mountain-side hangs heavy with snow, the shabby room in the in- 
terior of the old coffee-house is a sort of bear’s deu,«(vhere the small 
handful of men, whose duties chain them here in season and out of 
season, sit drawn together in a narrow circle— their wants attended 
to by a couple of inferior waiters on half-wages — while the snow- 
flakes fall on the window, and the smoke of their cigars curls up to 
the low ceiling and slowly stains the dingy walls. In the height of 
summer, the guests spread themselves on the veranda outside, and 
eat their food in the shade of alternate pomegranates and oleander- 
trees, and to the music of the Hercules fountain ; for it is here that 
the stone figure stands, leaning on its club, guarding the waters 
which flow at its feet. 

But now the pomegranates and oleanders are still stowed away at 
the back; the veranda outside is bare and chairless, and everything 
still concentrates itself in the low-roofed, dingy dining-room ; for the 
beginning of May is scarcely the beginning of the season here. 

The inferior waiters are attending to the wants of the solitary oc- 
cupant of the room — a Roumanian doctor, who practises in winter 
at Bucharest and in summer at the Hercules Baths. This Rouma- 
nian is enormous, black-haired and unkempt, and his wants are strong 
coffee and spirits. The enormous doctor is a good deal bored with 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


59 


his own society, and glances up and down the short piece of street 
in hopes of an acquaintance, hut there is nobody in sight. 

“Bring me a paper, will you?” he calls to a man in a shabby black 
coat who is passing through the room. 

The man in the shabby black coat looks at him over his shoulder, 
and does not bring the paper. A fussy w^aiter rushes in, waving a 
paper four days old, and whispers in an awestruck tone that the 
man in the shabby coat is the landlord, and you could hardly expect 
a landlord — etc. 

“ AVhy ?” remonstrates the Roumanian; “he alwa5^s used to be a 
waiter; I remember him changing my plate every day last year.” 

“ Oh, last year ! yes,” whispered the frightened waiter; “but you 
know — in winter — married the landlady;” — in a deeper whisper — 
“ first husband shot himself — winter before that again;” — in a whis- 
per so profound as to be scarcely audible — “ nothing else to do.” 

“Ah, I understand,” says the Roumanian, grasping the situation. 

The surroundings of the Djernis valley in winter were indeed 
such as to reduce a man to marrying his grandmother, or murder- 
ing her, for the sake of a variety. The Roumanian doctor had had 
glimpses of the landlady, and from what he remembered of her 
charms, it appeared not improbable that the second husband should 
shoot himself next winter, as the first had done the last; leaving 
thus an alternate wedding and suicide, relieving each other in an 
endless vista for many more winters to come. Dreary winters ! the 
marriage as dismal as the suicide; the suicide as gay as the marriage. 

‘ ‘ Bah ! bring me another paper — the Pester Lloyd. ” 

“Don’t keep it yet; begin most of our papers on the 15th. Only 
keep two in winter. The new landlord ” — lowering his voice again 
— “has cut down things.” 

“Me Uercle!” ejaculated the Roumanian, pushing his unwashed 
hand through his uncombed hair, which, unchecked by any scissors, 
had been allowed to reach his shoulders, and hung there in a heavy 
black fringe. 

This Roumanian was of what he himself called a soft and impres- 
sionable nature. In private he was much given to scribbling verses 
in the Roumanian tongue ; and by a strange coincidence, or a strange 
string of coincidences, these sonnets happened never to be addressed 
to his wife. In public he was equally given to arranging fireworks, 
musical entertainments, and other means of public amusement. 
Public amusement, indeed, appeared to lie nearer his heart than 
the public health. He always declared himself to be passionately 
attached to each of his eight children; but the anxieties which he 
occasioned to the practical - minded mother were obstacles in the 
way of their bringing -up, scarcely to be made up for by effusive 
caresses and showers of kisses. 

The picture of winter desolation sketched out by the whispering 
w^aiter was enough to depress his sensitive mind, though he had 
often before heard the like pictures described; and he sat with his 
fingers among his hair, plunged in melancholy reflections, until the 
opening of the coffee-room door aroused him from meditation. 


GO 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


The German Bade doctor, Funk by name, a timid startled man, 
slipped into the room, and answering to a vociferous invitation, 
joined his Roumanian colleague at the table. Some minutes were 
passed in discussing the landlady’s marriage, the prospects for the 
season, the few interesting cases which had as yet appeared. 

“I don’t believe there are more than twenty names on the Cur- 
Uste yet,” said the Roumanian, with a groan. “ I never saw such a 
late season. I wonder if there are any more ‘guests expected this 
week. The baron ought to know. Where can he be hiding him- 
self all this time?” 

“I saw Baron Tolnay with his gun a little time ago,” ventured 
Dr. Funk. ‘ ‘ I think he mentioned something about a bear, or sev- 
eral bears;” not daring to be too positive on the point. 

“Bah! I wish I had stayed at Bucharest till the 15th,” said the 
Roumanian, shaking the shaggy hair from his forehead. “ There is 
nothing to be done here. Are you treating that English lady they 
speak of ? The first English patient who has ever strayed so far 1” 

Dr. Funk confessed that he was treating the English lady. 

“And her husband came last night,” pursued the Roumanian. 
“He is an English lord, they say. How on earth will he pass his 
time here — unless, to be sure, he takes to writing sonnets? Uitisee! 
uitisce! (see! see!) what is that? Softly, my friend!” as the door 
flew open under the scratch of a heavy paw^ and a large gray dog 
stalked majestically into the room. 

“Where is your master, Pasha?” asked the Roumanian, stretch- 
ing out a big hand ; “he cannot be far off if you are here. I thought 
you were after the bears, eh?” 

“He is coming,” whispered the Bade doctor to his companion. 
“Ha! by the club of Hercules, here is the baron himself. Perhaps 
he can tell us more.” 

The coffee-room door again creaked on its hinges, and a young 
man, wearing a fancy sporting attire of gray and green, and having 
a feathered hat on his head, and a gun slung over his shoulder, 
entered the room whistling. 

“A glass of cognac, quick!” he called out, standing just within 
the door. 

The nervous waiter fluttered his napkin, and executed a series 
of agitated bows ; while the landlord himself, returning for the 
moment to his servile habits, ran nimbly for the cognae, and brought 
the glass deftly balanced on a plate, in the manner which had been 
acquired in the days of his past obscurity. 

Both doctors had risen, and had inclined themselves, each after 
his fashion — the German doctor profoundly, the Roumanian theat- 
rically— and then remained standing as though in the presence of 
royalty, until a careless gesture of the sportsman told them to re- 
sume their seats. 

“Baron Tolnay,” began the Roumanian, whose nature was not 
prone to be overawed for long even in presence of the omnipotent 
valley -king, “can you not tell us what the new English lord is 
going to do with himself here?” 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


61 


“Hang himself, probably,” said the young man, having tossed 
off the cognac with the gesture of an habitue, and holding out the 
empty glass towards the cringing landlord. 

“But cannot we devise a plan for saving him from suicide?” and 
the doctor pushed a chair suggestively towards the baron. 

“You must devise it without me then, Kokovics; for my men 
are "waiting up there,” shrugging his left shoulder in a general way 
towards the mountains. ‘ ‘ I settled the place and the hour, and I 
shall hardly reach it in time as it is. ” 

Tolnay made a step forward into the room, and stood with one 
hand on the back of the chair which the Roumanian had pushed 
towards him. He was a man not over twenty-eight, looking young- 
er from the vivacity of his manner. Thanks to his expressive eyes 
— black eyes full of the fire of youth — and thanks to his slight, 
^veil-knit figure, he was handsome, though his features were not 
regular, nor his stature tall above the average. 

“ I will tell you what,” said Dr. Kokovics, after a reflective pause, 
during which he had been searching his memory for some tradi- 
tional scraps which lingered there; “we must give the English 
lord plenty of water — water in all shapes — water to drink, water to 
fish in, water to wash in — particularly to wash in” — he repeated 
with a sort of wondering emphasis — “that is w'hat they do all day 
long — wash— wash — without resting. They are very mad, those 
English;” and the Roumanian shook his head as he contemplated 
the complexion of his own hands, and thought how well they got 
on without soap and water. 

“More charitable to drown him at once, my dear Kokovics,” 
interpolated young Tolnay, with a yawn expressive of ennui. 

“No, baron; depend upon it, water 'will create the happiness of 
Lord — what is he called?” 

“ Ouare,” completed Dr. Funk. 

“ Ilovart,” corrected the baron. 

Dr. Funk yielded the point at once. 

“As for the other guests that came last night,” chattered on Ko- 
kovics, “they will present no difficulty, for they are Germans, and 
Germans are proverbially content with their knitting and the de- 
lights of their family circle. Have you heard their name yet, Baron 
Tolnay?” 

Mohr, I fancy, it stands. Madame Ascelinde Mohr, nee Con- 
tesse Damianovics de Draskocs, or some wonderful nonsense of the 
sort; and a daughter, if I remember right, and a son. Has any one 
seen the daughter, by-the-bye?” 

No one had seen the daughter. 

“Patience,” said Tolnay, taking his foot off the bar of the chair 
and jerking up the gun on his shoulder. “No daughter can re- 
main hidden here for long. Pasha, come away with you !” 

“So you are really going, baron,” said Doctor Kokovics in a tone 
of dissatisfaction, as the Hungarian turned and whistled for his dog. 
“What is 3’^our game? Bears?” 

“Yes, bears; or anything else either. Probably bears.” 


62 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“Probably — anything,” repeated the Roumanian, squeezing one 
of his eyes shut, and heaving a sentimental sigh. “ Oh, baron, you 
look like a very keen sportsman indeed. I suppose bears will do 
as well as anything else to pass the time Avith until Princess Try- 
phosa makes the valley glorious again with her presence.” 

The Hungarian pushed up his feathered hat and settled it more 
firmly on his forehead. “Nonsense, Kokovics! mind your own 
business; you have enough on hand to need your attention, I fancy.” 
lie made an attempt at a frown, as he pressed down his hat with 
his hand ; but his black eyes sparkled, and an expressive smile made 
his face more handsome, as a row of even white teeth shone for a 
moment in sharp contrast to the blackness of his hair. 

“ Good-luck, baron,” cried Kokovics as Tolnay reached the door, 
wdiicli Pasha, with a blood-thirsty eagerness, was impatiently scratch- 
ing open, as though he already smelled a flavor of bears. 

“My luck never fails me,” said Tolnay as he slammed the door, 
and walked out whistling into the spring evening; while Pasha, 
having given one bound, and barked one permissible bark of ex- 
citement, settled down into a stately stalk at his master’s heels. 

Up the valley Toluay’s road led him, past the Catholic chapel, 
into the solitude beyond. His men were waiting for him up there 
on the mountain-side, and as he struck up the path he cast a glance 
at his w^atch. 

‘ ‘ Half an hour late — that is Kokovics with his chatter. I must 
take the short cut;” and leaving the path, he brealts his v’^ay through 
the bushes and tramps over mosses and ferns upward, and always 
upward. 

Istvan Tolnay never throws a glance on the hawthorn branches 
which he pushes aside and leaves hanging broken behind him, nor 
at the cowslips which lie with crushed stalks after he has passed, 
and do not rise again. He has seen these spring flowers here so 
often, growing in just the same way, that they can make no impres- 
sion on his mind. He does not notice them, nor think of them. 
What is he thinking of, as he walks up whistling through the thick- 
ly grown flowers? ' Is he thinking of the Princess Tryphosa? Or is 
he in imagination face to face with a bear like Pasha, whose paws 
sink heavily into the emerald moss, and whose lowered head and 
fixed eye denote a stern concentration of mind? 

It is not late yet. Outside in the wide flat world the sun will not 
sink for another hour ; but in the Djernis valley the day is short- 
er by several hours than elsewhere. The last blaze of sunshine is 
falling on the hill-side to the left, and will presently die away behind 
the lofty rampart, and leave the rocks and trees cold, and the valley 
in black shadow till late to-morrow morning. 

Istvan treads down a clump of sprouting fern, and puts out his 
hand to bend aside a branch. 

Ha! what is this? A low sound at his heels coming from the depth 
of Pasha’s capacious chest, as with glaring eye he presses forward. 

The Hungarian’s gun is unslung already, and his fingers on the 
trigger. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


63 


A bear so low in the valley at this season! How could this be? 

Cautiously he makes a step forward, holding the hawthorn twig 
for fear of its snapping, and then stands motionless, with extended 
neck and searching eyes which glance over the space beyond. 

Ho has not long to search, for it is here that the vanishing sun is 
throwing its rays in a shower, and right in the middle of the yellow 
light a girl lies asleep on the bank. 

But how is this? Can this figure be mortal indeed? Is this a 
creature of flesh and blood? or not rather some fairy of the woods, 
some princess who has slept here for a hundred years ; who has 
slept for so long bewitched that the ivy has grown over her, trailing 
round her feet and in her hair, and on her arms clasped high behind 
her head? Some sleeping princess, surely — and is he the lucky man 
who is to waken her? Her very dress seems to be grown from the 
bank; garments woven of the leaves and the dark-green moss on 
which she lies. So softly they fall around her, so gently they shape 
themselves to the curves of her graceful figure 1 Her head is thrown 
back upon her clasped hands, showing the line of a milk-white 
throat, and pillowed on a great sheaf of flowers, yellow and purple 
and pink ; and on the crowded flower - heads, turning them into 
transparent gems, and on the weaves of her loosened hair, drawing 
through it trembling threads of red fire, the last of the sunlight 
falls. 

Istvan Tolnay was twenty-eight, and he was a Hungarian ; his im- 
agination was inflammable and his nature impetuous. This sudden 
vision of beauty bursting upon his eye, under all the flattering, mag- 
ical influence of the checkered sunlight, made his thoughts grow 
wild for a moment, and his heart beat fast ; while his fancy, ever 
ready at a touch, set to weaving the realities of the surroundings 
into the fit framework of a fairy tale. 

He let the hawthorn branches fall together behind him, with a 
gentle hand this time, and in wondering bewilderment he made a 
step forward, his gun sunk by his side, while with the other hand 
he held back the eager dog who dragged at his collar, flaring and 
straining; too much in awe of rightful authority to bark, or even to 
growl, but not quite able to suppress a mournful whine, expressive 
of mental agitation. Istvan made a step forward, wondering, and 
then made another step, and wondered still more, alwtws standing 
still again, for fear of breaking the spell of that sleep. There was a 
white flower hanging in her hair, half on it and half on the moss — 
a head of white hawthorn, drooping and fading already, but the 
magical light had touched it too, and it shone like a fairy star. 

Now he stood close to her, looking down at the lovely face, where 
the curling lashes, gold-tipped like the hair, swept the fair, flushed 
cheek. His heart-beats quickened; a desire almost irresistible rose 
in him, a powerful curiosity to see of what color these closed eyes 
might be— a wish to stoop and wake the sleeping beauty in the way 
that the prince always wakes her in the fairy tale. He was not used 
to denial of the things he wished ; he stooped, and his hand was on 
the hawthorn, while on his other side the forgotten Pasha, half 


64 


THE WATEKS OP HERCULES. 


choked by the unconscious hold on his collar, turned up his eyes 
with a humble inquiry as to whether he was to lick the sleeping 
beauty’s hands or tear her to pieces. 

Istvan held the flower, then he gazed at it, then he kissed it, for 
his fancy was on fire. That girl on the ground seemed to lie drowned 
in a flood of gold. One wave of hair, straying forward over her 
shoulder, rose and fell Avith her breath. He must act the fairy 
prince, though it were madness to repent of ever after. The kiss 
upon the white flower had been sweet, but the kiss upon that living 
red flower would be sweeter still. He stooped again, lower this 
time. 

Something rattled through the branches overhead, and hit him 
sharply on the neck, on the shoulders, and dropped into the moss. 
Has the fairy princess got fairy guards to watch her, or have all the 
squirrels of the forest risen in an army to defend her? He started 
back, upright in a moment, coloring and conscience-stricken; and 
he scanned the beech beside him. The leaves Avere thick, and the 
branches close, but his eyes were piercing. Up there, grinning at 
him over the shining bark, a goblin crouched, with eyes that glit- 
tered in mischievous delight, and skinny fingers that clutched the 
tree. The face vanished like a face in a nightmare, and there was 
a sharp rustle in the branches. Down came another and more vig- 
orously aimed handful of dry beech-nuts ; they landed on his hat, in 
his pockets, and they showered upon Pasha’s lowered head. There 
are limits even to a dutiful dog’s subordination; and finding himself 
pelted with beech -nuts, Pasha considered that those limits Avere 
reached. He tore himself free from his master’s relaxing hold, 
threAv himself against the haunted tree, and, reared up to his fullest 
height, pawed the slippery trunk with his unavailing claAvs, while 
the forest resounded with his deep-toned bay. 

The first of those barks Avas the breaking of the spell. The fairy 
tale faded and was gone, before even the fast-dying sunlight had 
vanished. Istvan Tolnay with a start found himself transported back 
into the prose of real life. ^ He Avas not a prince, he was only Istvan 
Tolnay, with his gun by his side; the trees around Avere not Avhis- 
pering to each other with magic tongues, they were only shaking in 
the evening breeze : that goblin up there Avas nothing but a sallow- 
faced youth perched upon a branch. The princess herself was no 
more than flesh and blood— very fair flesh and blood indeed, as she 
started up, rubbing her eyes— and her moss- woven garments but a 
tumbled green dress. 

The aAvakening was rude for a sleeping princess; and starting up 
at the harsh sound of the bark, Gretchen stared around in fright. 
She saAv a man Avith a gun gazing at her Avitli intense fixity; her 
eyes, still clouded with sleep, shone dim and deep for a moment; 
and Avith the movement her hair lost its Inst hold, and shook itself 
doAvn in AA\aves and rings and Avonderful net-Avorks of silk. 

Istvan, becoming conscious of his own prosaic identity, recovered 
his presence of mind Avith Avhat haste he could, and Avith a rather 
uneasy bow retreated a feAv steps towards the bushes, for his inbred 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


65 


savoir-vwre told him that it was scarcely correct to stand rooted and 
staring open-mouthed at an unknown young lady, whatever might 
be the habit of princes in fairy tales. 

“I am afraid my dog has frightened you,” he began, in his rich, 
well-modulated voice, and with eager eyes still fixed on the girl. 

She looked at him critically. 

“ It stands to reason that he has frightened me.” 

Istvan made a gesture expressive of unmitigated despair. 

“How can I prove my distress for the wretched beast’s misde- 
meanor?” 

“By removing him,” said the beauty, promptly — “and yourself 
too,” her tone almost seemed to add. 

She was rising as she spoke, but the ivy-trails were an obstacle, 
and she stumbled and caught at the bank. Istvan stepped forward, 
but the ci-devant goblin brushed past him disdainfully, and the ci- 
devant princess told him with a glance that he was not wanted. In 
the next moment she bit her lip, and her cheek flushed crimson. 
Was it the unwavering look in his bold black eyes that made her 
blush? or had she seen the hawthorn in his hand, and guessed at 
the theft committed? She walked two steps away, and with her 
back towards him began twisting up her long loose hair; while 
Istvan, standing by the hawthorn - bush, felt almost perplexed, al- 
most foolish — he who had never been perplexed in his life before, 
and certainly not in the presence of a woman. The decision of the 
beauty’s manner, her matter-of-fact tone, the critieal, almost severe 
glance of her gi’ay eyes, had taken him aback. 

He was not wanted here; and calling to Pasha, he slowly turned 
and walked through the bushes, but his steps lagged strangely, and 
he looked over his shoulder oftener than was wise, considering the 
roots and stones in his way. She had done with her hair, she had 
put on her hat, and now the two were turning to go. Now Istvan 
stood still, for whatever other doubt there might be, there could be 
no question that it was his duty to save two strangers from being 
inevitably lost in the forest and possibly eaten by bears, as might 
well chance to be their fate, seeing that they had struck into a direc- 
tion exactly opposite to the Hercules Baths. 

Gretchen and Kurt, starting, as they believed, homeward, heard 
a crackling of twigs, and quick steps behind them, and found them- 
selves overtaken by the hunter with his dog. 

“Excuse me,” he said, eagerly, “you are going quite wrong; you 
will be lost in the mountains if you follow that direction.” He 
spoke with a marked respect, but the intense expressiveness of his 
eyes never faded for a moment. 

‘ ‘ Thank you, ” said Gretchen, with her head rather high . ‘ ‘ Which 
is the right way?” 

“Down there; the path is not far off; you will allow me to es- 
cort you that far.” 

She made no sign of acquiescence — indeed it had been more an 
assertion than a question— but she turned the way he pointed, and 
followed him as he forced the passage in advance. 

5 


66 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


It was not more tlian fifty paces; and having reached the path, 
the hunter turned round, and raising his hat, left them without an- 
other word. 

The dusk was falling fast by this time, and Gretchen and her 
brother hurried home in unbroken silence. 

Meanwhile the hunter, with the dog beside him, pursued his way 
upward towards the place where his men were waiting for him at 
the rendezvous. They must have given him up for lost; but he 
dragged along lazily, in no hurry, it seemed, to relieve their minds. 

Is he thinking of the Princess Tryphosa now, as he loiters along 
whistling, or is he thinking of some other princess? What is he 
thinking of as the shadows darken the wood around him? 

A little while ago he had played the knight in a fairy tale; now 
he is only a man in real life, called Istvan Tolnay. 

But Istvan Tolnay holds in his hand a faded hawthorn flower. 


CHAPTER X. 

A LOVE-LETTER. 

“Oh waly, waly, but love be bonny 
A liltle time when it is new; 

But when ’tis auld it waxeth canid, 

And fades away like morning dew.” — Anon. 

Next day Gretchen took no walk in the wood. True, she had 
met neither bears nor wolves there yesterday ; but she had discov- 
ered that there were other dangers to be feared in the shade of the 
lonely forest. It was quite as warm an afternoon, and quite as 
clear: the bank of green forest opposite glistened in the sunshine 
and quivered in the breeze. Through the open window every 
sound floated in with perfect distinctness; sometimes a step, a voice, 
more seldom the rattle of a carriage. In the room there was si- 
lence, except for the rustling of paper under Gretchen’s fingers. 
Her father, who reclined half dozing in his chair, was the only oth- 
er occupant of the large apartment. 

Gretchen sat with her back to the window ; before her there stood 
open an old leather desk, whose contents she was submitting to a 
rather listless examination. 

Madame Mohr had directed her daughter to search for a paper 
she required, and which she believed was contained in this old 
desk, inherited from her mother. Countess Eleonore Damianovics. 

The paper in question was the address of the dead Pater Diony- 
sius, who had preached so remarkably well and baptized all the 
young Damianovicses, with which address Ascelinde was desirous 
of furnishing Dr. Komers, as an undefined and unexplained means 
of assisting him on his impending Draskocs journey. Not very sure 
of recognizing the paper, she had wisely delegated the office to the 
quicker eyes and sharper wit of her daughter. 

Gretchen was dissatisfied with the office— she could see no logical 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


67 


reason why a dead priest’s address should in any way favor the 
Draskocs cause; and so, with indolent fingers and half-hearted in- 
terest, she turned over the musty bundles before her, thinking per- 
haps more of her forest-walk yesterday, and of the adventure which 
had there befallen her, than of the papers she was handling. 

There were a great many papers in the desk, the accumulations of 
years. There were bills and addresses and letters ; many in un- 
known handwritings ; some from her uncle Alexius, easily distin- 
guishable by the round cramped hand, and shining a cold white 
among more faded epistles. In the place of honor lay a bundle re- 
ligiously fastened with silk ribbon, and labelled, “From my guardi- 
an, Count Josika Damianovics.” 

All these Gretchen tossed aside, but under the last bundle, crushed 
and perhaps forgotten, there lay another solitary letter, and this at- 
tracted her attention. Even though the ink was so faint with years 
as to be in places scarcely brown, and though the yellow paper was 
falling asunder at the creases, Gretchen at once knew the letter to 
be one of her father’s. It was dated “The Hercules Baths,” and 
with aroused curiosity she unfolded the limp and ragged sheet. She 
did not know it, of course ; but this was the very letter which, by 
falling into the hands of her grandmother more than twenty years 
ago, had been the direct cause of her mother’s elopement and mar- 
riage. It looked so worn and liaggard, this old letter, so marked 
with lines that might have been the crow’s-feet of care, so furrowed 
with age, and so stained with unsightly spots, as if it had gone 
through a world of trouble, instead of having only lain here for years 
forgotten and uncared for. 

“My beloved Asceliude,” it began. A love-letter — really and 
truly a love-letter. Gretchen contemplated it with something of the 
same wonder with which she had contemplated the woman with the 
broken heart; and as her eyes travelled along the faded lines, her 
wonder grew apace. There was so much tenderness written there 
in bleached ink — so many loving words about the sadness of the 
separation, and the sweetness in the hope of meeting again — so many 
assurances about her living continually in his thoughts— that Gret- 
chen, letting her hands sink slowly into her lap, began to ask herself 
where all that love and tenderness was gone? 

If it had ever been, how could it have turned so chill in twenty 
years? Was it indeed gone? gone, without leaving a spark behind 
it? merged into that half-impatient indifference which was the spec- 
tacle that Gretchen daily saw? crumbled away like this poor faded 
paper, which, even as she held it in her hands, dropped asunder, 
while one worn-out fragment floated quivering down to the floor? 
True, Gretchen had never heard a hot and angry, but neither had 
she ever heard a warm and tender, word exchanged between her 
parents. What was the use of all that dead affection since it had 
borne no better fruits? Ah! but it was to bear fruits of another sort, 
reflected Gretchen; for was not her experience gathered for her be- 
forehand ? And oucc more she vowed that it should not have been 
gathered in vain. 


68 


THE WAT]?ES OF HERCULES. 


She stooped as she reflected thus, and picked up the fallen scrap 
of paper. It was as soft as a linen rag, too weak even to rustle ; but 
the ink was better preserved here than on the rest of the letter, and 
one word, written somewhat larger than its neighbors, caught her 
eye at once. 

To judge from her bent head and parted lips, some interest within 
her was aroused, and presently the silence of the room was broken. 

“ Papa, what is Qaura Draculuif' 

“ Qaura Dracului?” repeated Adalbert, slowly. “Who has been 
telling you that name?” 

“I have found it written here,” said Gretchen, crossing the room 
and holding the torn paper towards him. 

Adalbert took the old letter and read it in silence. A shade crossed 
his face while he read, then a bitter smile, then a gleam of interest ; 
but it was with a sigh at last that he laid down the paper. 

“Another of my dreams which will never be realized. I was 
young and foolish then, and presumptuous enough to fancy that I 
had got on the trace of some discoveries valuable to history.” 

“And did you never find the spot of which this letter speaks?” 

“ Yes, I found it after weeks of search ; but I only saw it once ; 
for next day — next day I had to leave,” he finished with a frown. 
“It ’was a strange spot — a very strange spot indeed; weird, start- 
ling, fascinating. I hardly know whether to call it more terrible 
than beautiful.” 

“They tell me it is a deep, deep chasm” — read Gretchen, again 
taking up the letter — “a horrid yawning black hole in the wildest 
part of the hills, in the thickest shade of the forest. Bottomless, 
the peasants say ; and, according to all accounts, of measureless 
depth.” 

“Yes, of an enormous depth,” said Adalbert, in whose mind a 
long-dead interest was beginning to stir again. ‘ ‘ I remember throw- 
ing a handful of stones down the monstrous hole, and for seconds I 
could hear them falling and falling, and they never seemed to stop.” 

“ And the historical discoveries?” asked Gretchen. 

“The historical discoveries were broken off, as I tell you, by my 
abrupt departure. Possibly there were none to make; but I was a 
little rmnte by the scenery, and listened only too greedily to the wild 
legends of the country; and certainly,” went on Adalbert, -warming 
as he proceeded, “I had more than one rational ground to believe 
that the spot had been known to the Roman conquerors of this val- 
ley. There is a tradition still alive among the people here, that a 
tribe of Dacians, driven to bay among the mountains, preferred to 
throw themselves headlong down this abyss than submit to the Ro- 
man eagle. It was that story that first attracted my attention. I 
was bent on investigation. I fancied then that I should make my 
name known through the book with which these mountains inspired 
me.” 

“A book about this place, papa? about the Hercules Waters? I 
did not know that you had written one?” 

“Attempted to write one,” modified Adalbert, “ and under differ- 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


G9 


ent circumstances might perhaps have succeeded, for these forests 
breathed an inspiration which I never found elsewhere. I felt al- 
most as though they would tell me their secrets if I asked them. 
But the work was broken off very soon ; the old manuscript has lain 
locked away for these last twenty years. I have scarcely looked at 
it sinee I put it aside. A mere fragment it was, and a fragment it 
will remain.” 

Adalbert sighed again, and was silent; he considered the subject 
disposed of, but Gretchen did not. 

“Papa, ’’she said after a minute, “why should it remain a frag- 
ment?” 

Her father opened his eyes again languidly. 

“And my discoveries?” he said, with a faint smile, “my investi- 
gations? How is the book to be finished without them? And how 
are they to bQ made? Oaura Dracului lies at three hours’ distance 
from here. Do I look as if I could reach it?” 

‘ ‘ When your course of baths is over, of course you will be able 
to reach it, papa; and in the mean time — ” 

“Well?” 

“In the mean time I can reach it.” 

Adalbert looked at his daughter, and smiled incredulously. 

“Where is the difficulty ?” demanded Gretchen, somewhat baffled 
by his glance. 

“The difficulty is everywhere.” 

“ No generalities, please, papa; particularize the obstacles.” 

‘ ‘ Begin rather by particularizing your intentions. To start with 
— how do you mean to find the way?” 

“ I shall get a peasant to guide me.” 

“Exactly the answer I expected. You cannot get a peasant to 



ou. 


“Why not?” 

“Because, as you nave yet to learn, the Roumanian peasant is the 
most perfect personification of religious superstition that walks the 
face of the earth ; and because round Oaura Dracului there hangs a 
cloud of superstition not easy to pierce. The name alone is enough 
to show in what horror the place is held; literally translated, it is 
‘Devil’s Hole.’ Of all spots among these hills it is shunned and 
detested, by the few who know it, as a place accursed; though to 
nine men out of ten it is no more than a name, hardly as much, per- 
haps, for even twenty years ago the stories about it were sinking 
into forgetfulness. ” 

“Then I shall try bribery,” said Gretchen, still undaunted. “A 
Roumanian peasant must have his price like any other man.” 

“ His honor has, but his superstition never; of that I have assured 
myself.” 

Gretchen held her tongue for a little while, but her courage was 
not yet quelled. 

“Tell me, papa, would you find the way there again 3 rourself?” 

“I almost fancy so, were I once on the track; every circumstance 
of that walk is vividly printed on my mind. I marked a beech-tree 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


ro 

not far from the spot. I cut three crosses into the hark with my 
penknife— the finest beech I have seen in my life— the stem like a 
pillar, the leaves a canopy of green. When that tree is once found, 
Oaura Dracului lies not a hundred yards off ; but one might be 
nearer still without suspecting it, it lies so strangely hidden.” 

“Then, papa, surely your directions will be enough to guide us 
to the place?” 

The sick man fairly burst out laughing. 

‘ ‘ Oh, innocent ignorance ! And how about the long, pathless, be- 
wildering, indescribable forest that stretches between us and that 
beech-tree — one among a million of beech-trees, its very images and 
copies? No, Gretchen, your plan will not work.” 

“And yet Oaura Dracului must be found!” exclaimed Gretchen, 
and brought down her small hand clinched on the table. “ I have 
made up my mind that it is to be found !” 

Adalbert stopped laughing, and eyed his daughter in some sur- 
prise. 

“ How now, my cool-headed damsel, what means this sudden fire? 
What betokens this wonderful interest in a perfectly illogical black 
hole in a forest? You talk like a maiden in a romance this evening. 
Have the mountains bewitched you too?” 

“Oh, papa,” said Gretchen, coloring, “what nonsense!” 

Of course it could not have been the mere sound of the description 
which had tempted her; of' course it was not the black chasm yawn- 
ing in the wildest part of the hills, in the thickest shade of the for- 
est, which had aroused her curiosity; nor the place that was as ter- 
rible as beautiful, nor the superstition that guarded it, which had 
caught her fancy. All these grounds might have had weight with 
a girl of the romantic class ; but how could they boast of any influ- 
ence over the young lady who had carried off the prix de logique at 
school, and who ever since had shown herself worthy of the repu- 
tation there gained? No; wuth her some other motive must have 
been at work, and she hastened to explain what this motive was. 

It .appeared that neither the yawning abyss, nor the wild forest, 
nor the dark superstition, had anything to do with her interest; Gau- 
ra Dracului was not to be sought for its sake alone, but only as a 
means towards an end. And that end? What was it to be? Oh, 
she had her arguments all ready. The end was nothing less than 
the pursuance of the investigations, and the completion of the long- 
abandoned manuscript, which, written on the spot, would possess a 
peculi.ar interest, and therefore, as she further argued, command a 
large sale. “And it stands to reason,” completed Gretchen, “that 
in such a case you will realize a great deal of money. Oh, papa, 
Oaura Dracului will make your fortune yet, if you would only be- 
lieve me!” 

“ So your love for Oaura Dracului is in reality a love for florins,” 
remarked Adalbert, with a cynical smile, having listened in silence 
to his daughter’s speech. 

“Exactly, papa ; and you accused me of romance! Confess now 
that you were wrong!” 


THE WATEKS OF HERCULES. 


VI 


“ Absolutely wrong. How strange, to be sure, is my paternal role! 
While other fathers arc forced to bridle the romantic follies of -their 
children, I, on the contrary, have to restrain my daughter's sense.” 

“ You acknowledge, then, that I am sensible?” 

“ So terribly sensible, Gretchen, that you sometimes frighten me.” 

Adalbert was gazing at her, as he spoke, with a look of keen in- 
quiry. His daughter was to him, and always had been, a beautiful 
riddle which he had tried in vain to read. She baffled him at every 
point. Was he to believe the account which she gave of herself? 
Or might he still hope that underneath that brilliant and seeming- 
ly hard surface there lived a genuine tenderness? Sometimes he 
thought the one, and sometimes the other. The first doubt had arisen 
years ago, when the four-year-old Gretchen had sat on her father’s 
knoe, listening to the story of a baby brother and sister, who, cast 
adrift from out of a sinking ship, had gone down into the deep blue 
sea, holding each other’s hands to the last. It was an affecting story, 
and towards the close a big tear shone in each gray eye. The anx- 
ious father feared that a burst of sobs would follow, and was half 
reproaching himself for the choice of so harrowing a tale, when his 
little daughter took him by surprise. The gray eyes had suddenly 
cleared, though there was still a bright stain on the cheek ; and hav- 
ing sat silent for a moment, she inquired, “Was everybody in the 
ship drowned?” “ Everybody,” said the father, imprudently. “ Then 
who told the story?” “A little bird, perhaps,” said Adalbert, laugh- 
ing; but in the next moment he almost quailed before the look 
of supreme scorn which shot towards him. “Little birds do not 
speak.” 

Since that evening he had often asked himself in perplexity wheth- 
er his beautiful daughter had sense alone, or whether she had a heart 
as well — whether the outspoken thirst for wealth, which year by year 
she came to display, was in itself more perilous or less so than the 
secret longings of many a worldly maiden. She was not like other 
girls, and therefore she frightened him. Other girls, even when they 
worshipped the golden calf, had at least the grace to worship it in 
private. The world has no chance of guessing at the nature of that 
veiled and shrouded idol before which the votary kneels in enrapt- 
ured prayer. Oh, if hearts could be sacked like churches, what a 
booty of golden calves could be torn from the sacred shrines, where 
they have throned unsuspected in many a spotless virginal bosom ! 

Gretchen built her altar in public, and strewed her incense in the 
face of the world. The world was scandalized— her own father was 
alarmed. What was to come of it? If she had married Vincenz 
Komers (as Adalbert had been short-sighted enough to hope she 
would), then, knowing her in the hands of an honorable man, her 
father would have felt his mind at rest; but now, what was to come 
of it ? These questions were in Adalbert’s mind to-day, while his 
eyes followed his daughter’s movements. 

She had returned to the desk; but though she was stowing back 
the papers, the words with which she broke the pause betrayed that 
her thoughts were still clinging tenaciously to their former object. 


12 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ But at any rate,” she remarked aloud, “ if we do succeed in find- 
ing the place — for we may come across it by chance, you know — you 
must promise me, papa, to finish that book,” 

“ I think Ave had better count our chickens after they are hatched, 
Gretchen. My energy is not what it used to be, nor my enthusiasm 
either, I fear; twenty years have ground it out of me.” 

An indignant protestation was rising to Gretchen’s lips, but she 
was interrupted by a disturbance in the passage. There were quick 
steps, then voices, a question and answer ; and in the same minute 
the door was flung wide open, and an aAve-struck servant announced 
— “The baron.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE VALLEY-KING. 

*^Jul. What Ihink’st thou of the rich Mercatio?” 

*'Luc. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.” 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Before more than a rapid questioning look had time to pass be- 
tween Herr Mohr and Gretchen, the baron was in the room. 

“A thousand apologies for intruding myself in this way,” he be- 
gan, advancing hat in hand, “ but there was a little matter connected 
with the Curlitfie which seemed to require explanation ; infinitely dis- 
tressed to have to trouble you on so trifling a point. ” While he spoke, 
his eyes were sweeping eagerly round the room ; he broke off as they 
fell on Gretchen. “Ah!” he exclaimed, with a start of surprise, al- 
most too natural to be quite natural, “I perceive that I have more 
than one apology to make; what can I say in defence of my dog’s 
conduct in the forest yesterday?” 

Gretchen had half turned on her chair; a beautiful blush dyed her 
cheek. She had seen both the eager glance and over-perfect start that 
followed it, and quick as lightning she had read his motive. Her heart 
began to beat tumultuously. Even within these first two days she 
had had opportunity to observe the respect and almost veneration 
with which the name of “the baron” was pronounced by every in- 
habitant of the mountain valley, and the semi-royal prestige Avhich 
environed his person. What wonder, then, that her heart beat now, 
and her cheek flushed crimson, when in the valley-king she recog- 
nized the sportsman of yesterday? 

The little matter connected with the Curliste proved to be a very 
little matter indeed, Baron Tolnay, having got through the prelim- 
inaries of apology and introduction, launched into a voluble explana- 
tion as to an uncertainty which had arisen respecting the spelling of 
a word in one of the names, expressing himself with as much appar- 
ent concern as if the matter had not been invented on the spur of 
the moment. Was Herr Mohr quite certain that the names had been 
given correctly? Was Madame Mohr’s name undoubtedly Damiano- 
vics de Draskdes, and not perhaps Draskocs de Damianovics, or not 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


V3 


possibly some other variation of the sort? Mistakes so often occurred, 
printers were so negligent, handwritings were so difficult to decipher. 
tSomething to the elTect of all this Baron Tolnay explained, while he 
took the seat which was offered him ; and then in a tone of well-bred 
anxiety, though with a confident smile, he again expressed a hope 
that he was not intruding. 

The hope was so evidently considered a mere matter of form by 
the visitor himself, and the pretext was such a flimsy disguise, that 
it required all Gretchen’s self-possession to put on even an appear- 
ance of belief in the slender fiction. 

To one person at least there was nothing flimsy in the pretext; 
anything relating to the great cause was too sacred a matter to be 
trifled with. Ascelinde, whom the rumor of the baron’s appearance 
had conjured to the spot, was in raptures. She thanked him with 
effusion ; she explained to him with minute detail that the name 
had been correctly spelled ; she gave him a resume of the family 
cause; she favored him with an outline sketch of the home of her 
ancestors ; she dwelt at length upon her guardian’s unscrupulous 
conduct; she was just stopped on the verge of her brother Alexius’s 
biography by Adalbert’s interposition. 

“An unfortunate family cause, as you see,” he said with a smile, 
which sufficiently betrayed his sentiments on the subject; “but it is 
scarcely fair to inflict it upon you.” 

Baron Tolnay bowed easily and gracefully, as much as to say that 
he was only too happy to be made the recipient of these troubles, 
and would be more delighted than he could express if Madame Mohr 
should be ready to impart to him her brother’s biography at this or 
any future opportunity. Something was murmured, too, about re- 
gretting that he could not serve the family cause in any other way, 
and a wish that they should command his services in whatever need 
should arise during their stay in the Hercules valley. 

Ascelinde’s heart was won from that moment. “We have to thank 
you for one service already, baron,” she rapturously exclaimed. 
“Without your kind guidance my children would never have 
found their way home yesterday.” 

This gave Baron Tolnay the opportunity of turning from the 
mother to the daughter. 

“Ah, you have not learned the lessons of our valley yet, or yoTi 
would not have the imprudence to move from the beaten track; our 
forest is a perfect maze, even by daylight; in the dusk sometimes a 
dangerous maze.” 

“Every maze has a key,” said Gretchen, “therefore it stands to 
reason that this maze has one too.” 

“ To be sure,” said Tolnay, rather wondering at her decisive tone. 
“And I flatter myself — ” 

“That you possess the key?” she interrupted. “Is that really 
true, Baron Tolnay? Do you know the forests well? All the for- 
ests?” 

“I should think I do; and I am about as tired of them as they 
must be of me.” 


74 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“And you know all the hills here? every path, every track?” 

“ Every stick, every stone,” said Tolnay, not thinking so much of 
his words as of their effect upon her, which he was still at a loss to 
explain. 

“Then,” cried Gretchen, with a ring of triumph in her voice, 
“you can tell me where to find a spot that I am seeking for — ” 

“ Any spot that you wish.” 

“Called Oaura Dracului,'' q\\q finished, rising in her eagerness. 
“ Do you know it, Baron Tolnay? You must know it if you know 
the hills.” 

“Ah, Gaura repeated Tolnay after her, though for a 

second he looked blank — “of course I must know it. There are so 
many of these caves here; the whole mountains are riddled with 
them.” 

“ No— not a cave,” said Gretchen; “ it is a hole. Papa, what was 
your description?” 

• “ I cannot call it anything but a sudden break in the forest-floor,” 

answered Adalbert ; ‘ ‘ there is no reason why it should be there, ex- 
cept that it is there. ” 

“Yes, a sudden break in the forest-floor,” echoed Tolnay, slowly. 

Gretchen’s eyes were severely scrutinizing him. 

“ Well, Baron Tolnay,” she said, laughing, “ what makes you hesi- 
tate? Are you also one of those perfect personifications of religious 
superstition about which papa has been telling me? Are you afraid 
of the devil’s vengeance if you betray to me the devil’s hole?” 

Religious superstition! At the mere notion, Baron Tolnay broke 
into an irresistible laugh — a very light and airy laugh — but which 
jarred on the expectant Gretchen, 

“Or perhaps you do not know the place?” she asked, stiffly. 
“You must either know it, or you must not.” 

Tolnay’s laugh broke off, and he hesitated for a moment before he 
spoke. He was very quick of thought, and perhaps in that moment 
of hesitation he had recognized the advantages of the position, or 
perhaps his memory had grown alive all at once, 

“Of course I know it — why should I not? Are you interested 
in it?” 

“ Not in the least; but papa is, for historical reasons,” she prompt- 
ly added. 

“ And you want to visit it?” 

“ To investigate it, that is to say, or to have it investigated, sound- 
ed, examined, measured,” said Gretchen, in her most business-like 
tone of voice. “ Don’t you understand?” 

“Perfectly,” said Tolnay, who understood nothing; “but” — he 
cast a rather doubtful glance over the fragile figure l3efore him — 
“you will never be able to get up one of these hills; you must have 
a horse, and — ” 

“Ah, ’’broke in Ascelinde, who all this time had been an uninter- 
ested listener, “if we only had one of my guardian’s horses here! 
There are stablings for twenty horses at Draskocs, Baron Tolnay!” 
It was a noticeable fact that the Draskocs horses possessed a rabbit- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


75 


like propensity for multiplication; at every enumeration their num- 
ber showed a steady increase. 

Toluay bowed and bit his black mustache; and Gretchen laughed 
at the idea of the required horse almost as much as Tolnay had 
laughed at the idea of his religious superstition. “I want neither 
horse, mule, nor donkey,” she assured him; “the only thing we need 
is a guide. Can you tell me of a guide, Baron Tolnay?” 

“ I can,” said Tolnay, readily. 

“ And who is he?” 

“ He is here,” said the baron, laughing; “ behold me at your ser- 
vice.” 

“ Oh,” said Gretchen, somewhat staggered, “ I did not mean that; 
but—” 

“But you will not reject me, since you can find no other?” 

“ Nor surely could have no better,” said Adalbert, politely. “ You 
are really very kind, baron, to trouble yourself about this fancy of 
my daughter’s.” 

“ Of your own, papa, you mean,” corrected Gretchen. “ Think of 
your manuscript!” 

“Well, of my own,” said Adalbert, in a tone almost of concession, 
though his face betrayed more interest re-awakened than he chose to 
confess. “There is no reason, certainly, why the investigations 
should not be pursued.” 

“And pursued at once,” broke in Tolnay. “When shall we start? 
I feel an historical fever on me already.” 

“Next week, perhaps,” suggested Adalbert. 

But next week was much too indefinite a term to suit Baron Tol- 
nay. He was burning to investigate the traces of defunct Dacians ; 
he could not possibly rest quiet for many days longer without hav- 
ing satisfied his mind as to the existence of Roman relics in the hills. 
Why be devoured with curiosity for a whole week longer? Why 
not take advantage of the still comparative coolness of the weather? 
Why not say this week? Why not to-morrow? Or was Frilulein 
Mohr alarmed at so short a notice? 

Fraulein Mohr was not in the least alanned; deeds were always 
more congenial to her than words. And so, between Baron Tolnay’s 
historical fever, and Gretchen’s business-like energy, and Adalbert’s 
revived interest in what had once been the pet scheme of his life, it 
was settled before they parted that the start should be made at day- 
break next morning. And by this hour to-morrow,” said Gretchen, 
exultantly, “we shall have made the first step towards the histori- 
cal discoveries. ‘ ‘ Oh, papa, where are now all the obstacles that 
you would build round Gaiira Draculuif You promise really to 
take me there, Baron Tolnay, do you not?” 

“If she asked me in that voice,” said Baron Tolnay to himself, 
“ I would promise really to take her to the moon.” 


76 


THE WATEES OF HERCULES. 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE WORLD ABOVE. 

“And after all, what is a lie ? ’Tis but 
The Truth iu masquerade.” — Byuon : Don Juan. 

There were two worlds here : the world of the valley below and 
the world of the mountains above; the one all the more beautiful 
because of its life, the other because of its desolation. 

To this latter world the ascent is precipitous — at places well-nigh 
perilous — feasible, indeed, only at one or two rare points of attack. 
Therefore, that world above is as well defended against invasion as 
though it were fortified according to strategical laws; and as far 
away, though it is so near, as a country floating in the clouds. 

The inhabitants of the world above can watch the movements of 
their lower neighbors— as the bears sometimes do when they creep 
to the edge of the rock and listen in comfort to the band below, 
whose strains float up distinctly through the pure mountain air — but 
to the world below the world above is a sealed book. Of a hundred 
people who visit the Hercules valley, ninety-nine will be content to 
admire these rocky heights from below, as they would look at the 
stars or the sunset, without the ambition to approach them. But 
the hundredth man, perchance, may stand and gaze so long and so 
deeply that the Spirit of the mountain throws his spell upon him, 
and bids him ascend ; which he does with pain and toil, fighting for 
each step, and battling for breath till he reaches the confines of this 
enchanted country. Once here, he has gained the battle; and for 
hours he can walk at ease, in such a forest as he will have scarcely 
fancied in his dreams. He may have seen black pine forests, shak- 
ing their fragrant fringes to the ground ; he may have walked in the 
shade of time-honored oaks, or have seen the sunshine making fili- 
gree-work of silver birch-tree branches— but none of these sights 
will have impressed him as do these forests of the Hercules valley. 

For here all is vast, all is wide, solemn, majestic — awful without 
gloom, calm without monotony. Here the intruder, threading his 
way through the pillared corridors, starts as the sound of his own 
step breaks the breathless stillness of the aisles around him. The 
forest is one vast cathedral of tremulous green ; a temple which Nat- 
ure has built so manifestly for herself alone, that the mere presence 
of man seems rude profanation. Surely this mossy mosaic was not 
laid to be trodden by human feet? These garlands which deck the 
leafy altars, these swinging censers which perfume the breeze, these 
chalices of icy white and flaming crimson — surely they are conse- 
crated to the Spirit of these realms alone? Surely this cloistered 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


77 


repose should be troubled by no human voice, nor these stately pil- 
lars echo back laughter or song of man? 

The columns which support the mighty canopy retreat on all sides 
in an endless vista; each pillar a beech-tree, and each beech-tree a 
giant. Straight as ship -masts the trunks are reared; the shining 
bark roughened with clinging lichen and clothed with moss down 
to the spreading foot, which with its stealthy hold seems to grasp 
the earth like the velvet-covered claw of some living monster. They 
have all one character, that of strength and straightness, but each 
has its individual distinction. Some have only one band of moss 
down their sides, others have drawn their velvet robes around them ; 
others are marked by a large flat fungus, wdiich time has hardened 
into wood, standing out from their stems in bold relief ; other beech- 
es have received two or three or more of these fanciful ornaments, 
which are sometimes piled up one above the other, fifteen or twenty 
high, as large as footstools and as white as ivory, looking like some 
■wonderful contrivance carved by the hand of man, though the hand 
of man has never been near. And high overhead there is the green 
roof of branches, flat-grown and leafy, shutting out the light, or let- 
ting it in only with a green shade upon it, melting the gold of the 
sunshine, and filtering it through its net-work. A roof which moves 
and murmurs, weaving a hundred pictures with each movement, 
and playing a hundred tunes in each rustle, having contrasts of 
shadowy light and luminous shade, which no ceiling, however cun- 
ningly painted by man’s hand, could ever have. 

And if the living trees are beautiful, the dead trees are more beau- 
tiful still. Not those dead trees whose trunks liavc been hollowed 
out and set fire to by some stray bear-hunter, and which stand now, 
charred and black, like wicked ghosts, staring grimly at the travel- 
ler; those trees are weird, but they are not beautiful. The dead 
trees that are beautiful arc those which have fallen, perhaps under 
the fury of a winter storm, perhaps even cut down to meet some 
passing human emergency. No one is responsible for these victims, 
and no one protects them. There they lie and rot, and, the green 
moss creeps over them, turning them into objects fantastically beau- 
tiful, but devouring them with damp embraces, and feeding upon 
them day by day. A hundred times more glorious in their damp 
decay than they ever were in the prime of their strength, the colos- 
sal carcasses, stretched to their full length on the earth, are crusted 
with the enamel of lichens, and decked with moist shades of yellow- 
green. They seem to have borrowed the semblance of every costly 
thing; the glow of bronze, the sheen of satin, the fire of ruby and 
emerald, the refinement of fretted gold. They are inexhaustible in 
their variety, insatiable in their extravagance. 

Two hours after sunrise the exploring party had reached the heart 
of this new country. They were not following any path, for there 
was none to follow, but wound in and out the huge pillars, sur- 
mounting the fallen trunks, or sometimes breaking through a tangle 
of green. The forest was not silent while they passed, though their 
steps could make no sound on the overgrown earth. Baron Tolnay’s 


78 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


laugh echoed often under the leafy arches; and sometimes Gretchen 
asked a question, and sometimes Kurt whistled the snatch of a tune. 

Baron Tolnay seemed in high spirits. Strangely enough, from 
the moment that he had set foot in the forest his historical thirst had 
relaxed. There was not a single reference either to Homans or 
Dacians in the talk which he addressed to Gretchen. It was very 
brilliant talk, however — keen, ready, and just sufficiently flavored 
with sarcasm to make it palatable; and in spite of the want of his- 
torical element in conversation, Gretchen had found the long way 
very short. “You are quite sure that we are on the right road?” 
she had asked once or twice, when she feared that the conversation- 
ist was gaining too much ascendancy over the guide. 

“Of course we are on the right way,” said Baron Tolnay, and 
then for some minutes they walked on in silence, Pasha following 
close at his master’s heels, Kurt with his hands in his pockets saun- 
tering along as if he were merely taking a constitutional stroll, and 
looking at the beech-trees with a sort of good-humored patronage; 
Gretchen rather puzzled how to explain the ever-growing exuber- 
ance of Baron Tolnay’s spirits. There was a constant and unex- 
plained laughter in his eyes; he looked almost like a man who is 
hugging to his heart some secret cause of delight, which touches 
him as so exquisite that he can scarcely keep himself from its be- 
trayal. 


“ Baron Tolnay,” said Gretchen, presently. 

“ Yes, Fraulein Mohr.” 

“Are you looking at the beech-trees for those three crosses?” 

“ Of course I am.” 

“I have never seen you turn your head once.” 

“I am turning it continually.” 

“ What is there to laugh about?” she asked, a little piqued. “You 
talk as if it were a joke,” 

“Then you really think your father made the marks he spoke 


Think! I know he did. Did he not tell you so himself?” 

“To be ^ure.” 

This was incomprehensible and provoking. Could Baron Tolnay 
never be serious? Was that spark of mockery which lurked in his 
ready smile, and shone in the depth of his expressive black eyes, 
never to be quenched? 

“ If you will not look at the trees, I will,” said Gretchen, stepping 
up to the stem beside her. 

But Baron Tolnay, with the most unruffled good-humor, declared 
his readiness not only to examine, but to bark or strip or cut down 
any tree, or every tree, if it gave Fraulein Mohr the slightest satis- 
faction. And after this no specially fine beech-tree was passed un- 
scrutinized; only that Baron Tolnay always selected for scrutiny 
the same tree that Gretchen had chosen, which, as she proved to him 
on logical grounds, was a waste of time. They found wonderful 
mosses and brilliant lichens enough to rejoice the heart of a botanist, 
but the three crosses they were looking for they did not find. The 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


'79 


only trace of liimian presence to be discovered was the roughly cut 
figure of a quadruped with crooked horns, apparently a cross-breed 
between the evil spirit and a goat. 

“Some goatherd with a turn for art,” said Istvan, looking over 
Gretchen’s shoulder; “you meet them sometimes in the wood here.” 

“This is freshly cut,” said Kurt, lounging up. “Our artistic 
friend cannot be very far off.” 

There was the faintest indication of a track just discernible as it 
wound off to the right, while to the left a spot of blinding daylight 
broke in through an opening in the trees, and beyond there shone an 
open space of grass, as brilliant in the sunshine as the flash of a cut 
emerald. 

“Which way ought we to go — to the right or to the left?” 
asked Gretchen. 

“ Whichever you like best; it is not of much consequence,” 

“But one way must lead to Gaura Dracului, and one must not. 
It stands to reason that they cannot both be right. ” 

“I am no match for your logic, Fraulein Mohr,” said Istvan, with 
apparent gravity. “ I should recommend the meadow, then.” 

To the meadow, therefore, they went, stepping out of the dim light 
into a blaze of sunshine, and treading, as they walked, upon thick 
soft grass. When they were well out on the open space, Baron Tol- 
nay turned and offered a further piece of advice, “Now that we 
are on the meadow, I should recommend our taking a rest.” 

“It would be better to rest when we have reached Gaura Dra- 
cului” said Gretchen, doubtfully; .but, looking round her, she could 
not resist the repose and beauty of the spot. The space was oval 
in shape, belted all round with the deep green forest. On all sides 
the beech-trees had pressed, like a circle of invaders checked by a 
word of command, and standing now in close ranks, staring down 
with patient calm upon the spot which they guard. 

“And now,” said Istvan, when they had made their halt, “now 
that we are sitting, is there any reason why we should not eat our 
sandwiches?” 

“Great reason,” was the prompt reply. “I intend to eat my 
sandwiches by the side of Gaura Dracului” 

Gretchen had sunk on the grass; Baron Tolnay, a few paces off, 
leaning on his elbow, was idly plucking at the flower-stalks; Kurt, 
apparently in want of further exercise, was throwing sticks for Pa- 
sha to fetch, 

“Do you think your resolve is quite wise?” asked Istvan, looking 
up from the grass-blades. “ I fancy you will get rather hungry be- 
fore you reach Gaura Dracului” 

Gretchen drew out her watch. “We were to reach the spot at 
one; it is half-past twelve now; I can wait half an hour for my 
sandwiches, ” 

Baron Tolnay appeared to be deeply absorbed in the botanical 
construction of a tiny flower in the grass. He made no reply, 

“Is it not a pity that we did not bring ropes and torches with 
us?” said Gretchen, after a pause. 


80 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“What for?” 

“Why, to sound the depth, of course.” 

“ We must reach it before we sound it.” 

“ That will be in half an hour.” 

Again Baron Tolnay made no answer ; his face was hidden, as he' 
bent over the flower. Gretchen watched him with displeasure. 

“Which way do we go when we leave the meadow, Baron Tol- 
nay?” 

Tolnay tore off the head of the tiny flower, and began pulling off 
the petals; when he had pulled off the last petal and thrown away 
the stalk, he answered slowly, still without looking up, “I have not 
got the slightest idea.” 

With a face of rigid consternation Gretchen sat and stared at him, 
while he quietly searched about in the grass for another flower to 
dissect. 

“Baron Tolnay,” she managed at last to utter, “you promised to 
take me to the spot.” 

“ I would take you there if I knew where it was.” 

“But you said that you did know; you said that you remem- 
bered it.” 

“Friiiilein Mohr,” said Istvan, abandoning the search for the 
flower, and sitting up to confront her with his unabashed black 
eyes, “surely you understand all this, and do not require me to ex- 
plain?” 

“I understand nothing. You said that you would take me to 
Gaura Dracului” 

“And I say now, I would take you still, only I do not believe 
such a place exists.” 

Again Gretchen stared, speechless for a minute. “ Say that 
again, please — I did not quite hear.” 

""“I do not believe that such a place or such a hole exists,” re- 
peated Baron Tolnay, deliberately. 

“ But papa has seen it.” 

Baron Tolnay raised his well-shaped shoulders ever so slightly. 
There was an incredulity and a pity expressed in that movement 
which just stopped short of impertinence. Only a man as carefully 
polished in the furnace of the world as was this young Hungarian 
could venture to raise his shoulders at such a moment without ap- 
pearing ill-mannered. 

“I have no doubt your father believes that he has seen it; but he 
is an invalid— his health is broken for the moment— and invalids 
have strange fancies.” 

“But he was not an invalid when he wrote that letter; he was 
not broken down then.” 

“A man’s fancy can run very wild in twenty-one years,” said 
Istvan. 

“ Do you mean to say that you know nothing about the place?” 

“Upon my honor I have never heard a word of it, far less seen it.” 

“Then why have you brought me up here?” Her voice shook 
with anger. 


THE AVATEES OP HERCULES. 


81 


“Why have I brought you up here?” repeated Istvan, without 
changing his attitude. His hat was on the grass beside him, and 
his head, with its close black waves of hair, rested on his hand. 
Gretchen, as she asked her question, met the glance of joyful ex- 
ultation which broke out of those fiery eyes — they looked very fiery 
for a moment. The light danced in them, but the mockery still 
lurked in the black shade within. 

“ Surely we can employ our time, now that we are up here, better 
than by looking for a stupid black hole.” 

‘ ‘ Stupid black hole !” There was such scornful displeasure in 
Gretchen’s voice that Istvan quickly corrected himself. “An in- 
teresting black hole, I should have said, Fraulein Mohr ; but there 
are so many things that are more interesting than black holes.” 
Baron Tolnay, as he said this, looked very confident as to the su- 
perior attraction of black eyes contra black holes. 

Gretchen’s face was set into an expression of judicial severity, 
but Istvan did not tremble before it. 

“Do you mean to say, Baron Tolnay, that you have deceived us? 
that you have told an untruth?” 

“I would have told a hundred untruths for the sake of a walk 
like this.” 

She was not quite sure that she believed her ears; but the danc- 
ing light in his eyes was not to be mistaken. 

“ But that is a lie,” she stammered. 

“ I believe it is called so.” 

A sort of mental giddiness had come over Gretchen ; her ideas of 
right and wrong were reeling against each other. Here was a man 
owning frankly to a downright lie without the slightest appear- 
ance of shame ; and yet, ever since she had learned to speak, Gret- 
chen had been taught by her father to speak the truth; had been 
told that falsehood was the most heinous of evils. Was not Truth 
the twin -sister of Justice? And was not Justice Gretchen’s pet 
virtue? 

She had no words which could express this indignant bewilder- 
ment. She sat silent; but, though her eyes were on the grass, she 
could feel that those of Tolnay were upon her; and again she felt 
helpless to impress him as she would have wished. Though she 
did not look at him, she knew that his gaze was one of earnest ad- 
miration, and she was aware that with each wave of angry color 
that fiowed to her cheek his admiration was growing. 

At last she raised her head. 

“What do you propose doing now, Baron Tolnay?” she bitterly 
inquired. 

“I propose that we should eat our sandwiches.” 

“Sandwiches!” she echoed, impatiently. “I wonder you have 
still the courage to talk of sandwiches! Have you nothing else to 
suggest? Have you no remorse for the disappointment which poor 
papa will have to-night?” 

“There is no reason for disappointing your poor papa,” said 
Baron Tolnay, quietly. 

6 


82 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


She looked at him with some suspicion. 

“ What do you mean?” 

“ 1 mean that we have only to tell him that we found the place, 
and that will make it all right.” 

“ But how can we, since we have not found it?” 

“ Nothing could be simpler. He will believe us, if we say it, and 
he will never be the wiser. That is much better than disappointing 
him.” 

Gretchen turaed upon the speaker a face that was positively 
scared. She had never before had so many successive shocks of 
surprise; she had never been so puzzled by any individual of her 
acquaintance. Baron Tolnay was the first man whose designation 
in the mental catalogue had given her cause for doubt. “ A man 
of the world, brilliant, fascinating, good-natured, and, I think, 
pleasant” — such had been the first judgment written out yesterday. 
To-day she felt inclined to stroke out all the adjectives except 
“brilliant,” and to substitute some such qualities as “untruthful — 
disagreeable — hollow.” Surely the words were not too harsh for a 
man who was quietly proposing to her to join him in a deception 
which was to blind her father. But again, there was something 
about the manner of the man which made her hesitate, with the 
pen in her hand, figuratively speaking. His eyes, as he made the 
proposition, did not in the least shrink, as the eyes of the deceitful 
are supposed to do. Liars ought to look stealthy and watchful; 
their eyes should be cunning and disagreeable, unable to meet the 
eyes of their fellow-creatures. All this stood to reason, and there- 
fore was Gretchen’s creed; but Baron Tolnay quite upset all her 
theories. His voice even had a candid tone in it, and his face wore 
an expression of engaging frankness as he urged the advisability of 
the deception. It was not as if he were indifl;erent to wrong-doing, 
but simply as if he were incapable of seeing anything wrong in the 
proceeding. The openness, almost the innocence of his gaze, was 
more baffling than any glance of stealthy cunning. 

What now was to become of Truth? What of Justice and Logic? 
How fill up the place in the catalogue? How describe this inde- 
scribable man? 

Gretchen wondered whether the singularity of the situation was 
her fault or his : was it she who was stupid and dazed, or was it he, 
in w'hose mental constitution some one element was wanting, which 
made him different from other men she had known? What could 
that lacking element be? 

For a whole minute she made no answer at all, but when her first 
surprise was past, she spoke hurriedly. “Baron Tolnay, how could 
you, even for one instant, imagine that I could deceive my father in 
this way?” 

“ I cannot pretend to answer that, Fraulein Mohr; but this I know, 
you cannot succeed in deceiving me.” 

“ Deceiving you!” 

“ Tliis little romance about the hole is very interesting, and really 
very pretty ; but, after all, it was no more than a graceful excuse for 


THE WATERS OR HERCULES. 


83 


this charming expedition, which I hope you enjoy as much as I do. 
You surely did not really believe that such a place exists — as little 
as I believe it, who have shot bears in the hills for the last five years, 
and never heard the place mentioned — so you cannot have really 
believed that we were going to find it. Do not imagine that I am 
venturing to blame you, Fraulein Mohr; on the contrary, I think 
that it was our only course, for the sake of your father’s health.” 

Our course! Then he imagined that she had understood and tac- 
itly agreed to his deceit. This was not to be borne a minute longer. 

Gretchen started to her feet, and, stood before him with flashing 
eyes. 

“ Thank you, Baron Tolnay,” she said, haughtily. “I shall not 
ask you for your help again; I shall find Qaura Dracului for my- 
self ;” and with this, and a short inclination of her head, she turned 
on her heel and walked off straight across the meadow towards the 
point opposite to the one by which they had entered. She never 
looked back until she had reached the first beech - tree, and then, 
throwing a stolen glance over her shoulder, she saw Kurt following, 
and nearer to her was Baron Tolnay, striding along with his hat 
pulled over his forehead, and a very serious face. Ah! so she had 
at last succeeded in extinguishing that mocking light. He made no 
attempt to speak, though he was close behind her now, and she 
walked on straight ahead. 

She had not gone far when Pasha rushed past her, barking furi- 
ously. There was a low, dull tinkle of a bell, a sound of snapping 
twigs, and presently a large black-and-white goat was disclosed, in- 
terrupted in its repast, and standing in an attitude of defence. 

Gretchen did not immediately think of connecting this goat with 
the figure she had seen carved on the tree, but her curiosity was 
aroused. She pressed forward a few steps and then stood still, as 
all at once the strangest, the most weird of pictures was disclosed be- 
fore her eyes. 

Straight across the track she was following there lay a forest tree 
of enormous dimensions. The stump, with the marks of rude hack- 
ing upon it, clung with its mossy roots to the earth hard by, like the 
base of a broken pillar. The lower branches were broken into a 
half - withered heap ; but the branehes above, standing out like a 
young forest of trees, were still fresh. Upon this wealth of fresh 
leaves five or six goats were feeding luxuriously. One black goat, 
the largest of the small flock, stood reared up with its front feet on 
the trunk, while it nibbled down the highest leaves which it could 
reach. A small white kid was contenting itself with the broken 
twigs on the ground. Perched cross-legged on the trunk crouched 
a strange creature. Nothing but a coarse linen shirt, of a hue as 
dark and undefined as the tint of his own skin, covered this boy, leav- 
ing a broad allowance of brown chest bare. A ragged, high-pointed 
cap, of what had once been white sheep-skin, was on his head; not 
more ragged than his own shaggy hair, which hung from under it 
in a tangled black mass, over his ears and into his eyes, like the hair 
of a wild beast. In his thin brown fingers he held a pipe of wood. 


84 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


•which had seen much forest service in its days. A second shep- 
herd, a size larger, but in every respect resembling the first, leaned 
against a branch hard by, chipping at the bark, and giving forth, at 
the same time, a low booming sound at mechanical and regular in- 
tervals. It was his way of calling the goats together; and as he 
looked up stupidly, and stared with his large, wild, senseless eyes, 
he seemed scarcely more human than the goats themselves, 

“What are they?” asked Gretchen below her breath, recoiling a 
step in surprise and half in fear. 

“Goatherds only,” said Tolnaj’-’s voice beside her. “Shame 
upon those barbarians; they have cut down another of the finest 
trees; that is the way they ruin the forests for the sake of feeding 
their wretched goats!” 

With the comprehension of the situation, Gretchen soon regained 
not only her self-possession, but also renewed hope; for these strange 
shepherds, who lived in the hills, must surely know something of the 
spot for which she was searching. 

And so they did ; there could not be the smallest doubt of that. 
The mysterious word was scarcely pronounced, when an instanta- 
neous change came over the two faces before her. A minute ago, 
two pairs of sullen eyes had been vacantly watching her approach; 
two wide-open mouths had stupidly gaped at her. Her first greet- 
ing was unanswered, apparently unheard ; but upon the word Gaura 
Dmcului there followed a sudden transformation. The staring eyes 
suddenly dilated ; the boys stood before her with chattering teeth, 
shaking as though they had been struck with the ague ; and two 
brown hands, gaunt already, although so young, moved up and down 
again, as they signed themselves on forehead and breast with the 
sign of the cross, after the fashion of the Greek Church. 

The change was so unexpected, and the terror on both faces was 
so real in its wildness of expression, that Gretchen herself felt as 
though a shadow of superstitious dread had fallen on her. But the 
dread was only a new spur to curiosity, and with a dumb show of 
signs she attempted to enforce her question. Surely she could over- 
come the obstinacy of two half-savage boys. 

In vain, all in vain! Words were vain, signs were vain, money 
even was vain. She held it out towards them— glittering silver coins 
— ought that not to dazzle two starved shepherd-boys? 

Istvan threw himself into the argument now; but even his tone 
of rough command had no elfect. The goatherds never answered 
a single word, but stood pressed together like a couple of fright- 
ened sheep— gaping, staring, and trembling, until the smaller, and, 
if such a distinction were possible, the dirtier of the two, dropped 
his jaw and began to whimper piteously. 

It took ten minutes to convince Gretehen of her defeat. Keluc- 
tantly she put back the silver into her purse, and, without applying 
to Baron Tolnay for advice, she struck into what looked like a path- 
way and walked straight on, the others following her. Baron Tolnay 
never spoke, until, at the end of half an hour, they emerged, almost 
without warning, on a free and unshaded spot. It was a mere ledge, 


TUE WATEltS OF HERCULES. 


85 


and Gretchen had to check her steps rather suddenly, for immedi- 
ately from below her feet the ground fell sheer away — a precipitous 
mountain-side, dotted with tufts of fine grass, and sharpened at in- 
tervals by the acute point of a rock. Beyond there stretched a view 
of round-topped, wooded hills, 

“Where are we?” asked Gretchen, 

“On the confines of Hungary, with Roumania at our feet,” said 
Baron Tolnay ; and then, as Gretchen turned round, he added lower, 
“ Are you still angry with me, Fraulein Mohr? Will you not for- 
give me for this once?” He looked like a child who has certainly 
been naughty, but means now to be very good. His face was 
grave, excessively so. He was quite changed from half an hour 
ago ; he looked very penitent and very handsome. 

Gretchen gave him a searching glance, a glance which she intend- 
ed to be of scathing severity, but which, falling upon so meek and 
penitent a face, could not fail to soften a little. He certainly was 
the most perplexing man of her acquaintance, expressly created, it 
seemed, to set all logic at naught. During this last half-hour she 
liad quite made up her mind that he was a monster of deceit; and 
just as she had satisfactorily decided upon this point, here was the 
monster standing before her in an attitude of such convincing peni- 
tence, gazing at her with eyes of such provoking sincerity, that her 
carefully weighed sentence fell flat to the ground. She had been 
angry with him for his deceit; she was almost more angry with him 
for this frankness which upset all her theories, which forced her to 
be inconsistent, which, against her own will, was disarming her. 
Certainly he had been to blame, but it was difficult to believe that 
any one with that open glance could mean harm. The lie which he 
had told had been told for — well, yes, for her sake. Quick as light- 
ning a mental comparison had shot through Gretchen’s mind. Bar- 
on Tolnay had said that he would not mind telling a hundred lies 
for her sake, and Dr. Komers would not have told a single one ; of 
that she felt confident, without seeing it put to the test. What was 
the natural inference? 

But she did not wish to capitulate unconditionally. She gave 
him her hand, but she gave it with a sort of cool reserve. 

Baron Tolnay took her hand; he did not press it; he was on his 
very good behavior now. 

“ Do you still disbelieve in Oaura BraculxdV asked Gretchen in 
a tone of lofty coldness. 

“I will swear to its existence. The evidence on those two faces 
is not to be overturned; popular superstition has never interested 
me until to-da}''.” 

“And to-day it shall not baffle me,” said Gretchen. “I am go- 
ing back to the goatherds; it can only be a question of florins after 
ali.” 

They came to the felled tree, where the ground was strewn with 
bitten leaves, and where many a branch was half-stripped, but the 
spot was deserted. The fallen tree told them no tales, and neither 
goats nor goatherds were there. 


8G 


TUE WATERS OF UEECULES. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

“ SIR HOVART.” 

“ Bring the rod, the line, the reel, 

Bring, oh bring the osier creel, 

Bring me flies of fifty kinds. 

Bring me clouds and showers and winds.” 

Thomas Stoddart. 

In spite of the seclusion of the Hercules valley, such things as 
postmen were not entirely unknown, and letters and newspapers oc- 
casionally did stumble upon the right address; so also an epistle of 
Belita’s, the answer to that last of Gretchen’s, written before the 
journey. The signature this time was no longer Belita Pegrelli, but 
Belita Francopazzi ; for the mystic words at the altar-foot had some 
weeks ago transformed her into that ideal of happiness — a rich con- 
tessa. 

She wrote from Switzerland, and after a description of her w^ed- 
ding-drcss (not of her wedding), she put some questions as follows : 
Tell me by return of post what your watering-place is like; I mean, 
whether the Cursalon is favorable for showing off dresses? Prom- 
enade ditto? Would Parisian toilets find a public sympathique? 
Is it the sort of place where one can change dresses three times a 
day? The truth is, I am sick of Switzerland: we meet nothing but 
dowdy German women who wear hats which make my blood run 
cold, and who, I am certain, cling secretly to the tradition of the 
crinoline; or else big English ladies, coated, cravated, and booted like 
men. There is no triumph in eclipsing such rivals. I like to feel 
that my foemen are worthy of my steel. Besides which, Margherita 
— I blush for my weakness, but I have a sort of notion that I should 
like to see you again ; or, more properly speaking, I should like to 
see what acquaintances j^ou have found in your barbarous valley. 
You are at a critical period of life, Bambina, and I do not mean to 
lose sight of you until you have made your fortune as brilliantly as 
I have made mine. (Talking of that, by-the-bye, Draskocs would, of 
course, be all very well, if that sleepy lawyer of yours had it in him 
to finish the eternal suit). Do you know, Margherita, that your last 
letter made me rather uneasy? You have a clear head, to be sure; 
but Germans are never quite to be trusted. I am afraid you must 
have been reading some very second-rate novels. Do not again let 
me hear you talk such rubbish about a man saying to a woman ‘ ‘ that 
she is the only woman to him, etc.” Where did you pick up these 
ideas? I should like to see Ludovico try to say that sort of thing to 
me. I promise you he would not do it again. I am happy to say 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


87 


that I have observed no such sign of mental aberration in him. He 
is a nice, sensible creature. 

Gretchen, replying to this letter, said she believed there was no 
objection to Belita changing dresses six times a day, if it gave her 
any pleasure. “ Come and see for yourself,” she added. 

“13ut I think I have awakened the sleepy lawyer,” said Gretchen 
to herself. “ What does Belita know about his being sleepy? She 
has never seen him in her life.” 

The letter altogether was not satisfactory to Gretchen. What did 
Belita mean by these uncalled-for and wholly superfluous warnings 
against sentiment? And what could she herself have meant by re- 
taining and repeating such a ridiculously stilted phrase as the one 
quoted, and which she certainly had never read in any novel whether 
flrst or second rate? 

It was some weeks after their arrival in the valley that this letter 
had reached Gretchen’s hands; and during these weeks many more 
travelling carriages, with jingling bells, had rattled round the cor- 
ner. The place was slowly waking into its summer life ; the hotels 
began to look inhabited at corners, and rows of closed eyes opened 
in turn. The shops commenced a languid trade. The five men 
who composed the musical band played night and morning to a 
slowly increasing audience. At the restaurant where the Mohrs 
took their meals the inferior waiters had retired into the background 
to make way for superior attendants; the landlord exchanged his 
shabby coat for an official-looking black garment, and the oleanders 
and pomegranates appeared along the veranda in an alternate row, 
quite green and flowerless as yet, as if scarcely awake after their 
long sleep. 

The small handful of guests had now grown into a large handful. 
Roumanian ladies — swarthy, dark-eyed, large-featured, and stout, 
in some cases adorned with mustaches, in one case even bearded — 
sat all day long in the Cui’salon, languidly doing nothing, and very 
much exhausted in consequence. 

“ It would take very little to make any one of these Roumanian 
women beautiful,” the precocious Kurt had remarked one day; 
“ but they all just miss it somehow.” 

The increase of the guests brought with it an increase of duties to 
the large Roumanian Dr. Kokovics— social duties rather than medi- 
cal. Preparations for public amusements were started on a vast 
scale. There were to be musical entertainments, and entertainments 
with fireworks, and entertainments without fireworks. The over- 
taxed doctor staggered under the weight of the self-imposed burden. 
At every hour of the day he was to be met, covering the ground 
with enormous strides; his hat pushed far back from off his heated 
forehead, his unwashed hands crammed with paper slips, his hag- 
gard eyes restlessly perusing the lists that those slips contained. 
The lists were not the names of his patients; they were usually con- 
nected with public amusements, or sometimes they were the rough 
cjist of a couplet; for to write love- verses in summer-time was as 
necessary to the doctor’s nature as it is necessary for a thrush to sing 


88 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


in April. The only difference 'which the verses showed this year 
was the sudden appearance of gray eyes in the lines, as opposed 
to the dark eyes of former seasons. Blue or gray eyes were scarce 
in the Hercules valley, while black eyes shone there as plentifully 
as blackberries; and perhaps for this reason Gretchen began to find 
herself subjected to a species of slow persecution, not the less harass- 
ing because poetical. Dr. Kokovics’s muse haunted her footsteps. 
At all hours of the day, in every imaginable place, her attention was 
claimed by a class of composition which would perhaps best be de- 
scribed as “medicinal lyrics.” Omnipresence 'was the chief char- 
acteristic of these couplets. There was no escape from them ; they 
came by the post, they lay in her 'work-basket, they flutterd down 
before her eyes on the pathway, they dropped out of her napkin at 
dinner. Dating from the moment when the doctor had thought fit 
to celebrate Gretchen^s arrival with the cry — 

“ Daughter of Germania ! 

Welcome to our vale ! 

Though its rugged beauty 
Reside thiue furus pale”— 

the flood of poetry thus heralded poured down upon her thick and 
fast. 

These verses, which, if unsigned, were also unmistakable, breathed 
in their lines a scientifically colored but not the less ardent admira- 
tion. The poet-doctor seemed to be forever hovering between the 
extremes of his two roles; for while, as the former, he celebrated the 

“ Nymph-like, sylph-like grace ” 

of the adored object — as the latter, his professional anxiety could 
not fail to be aroused by the apparent delicacy of that, 

“Alas, too fairy-like form !” 

and if she dazzled him as a brilliant beauty, she likewise interested 
him as a possible patient. A continual hesitation betrayed itself as 
to which light she should be viewed in. 

But notwithstanding all this broadcast sowing of verses. Dr. Ko- 
kovics had as yet reaped nothing but contemptuous silence. The 
German family had made no acquaintances, and, probably by reason 
of Herr Mohr’s precarious health, did not seem inclined to make 
any. Baron Tolnay alone, whose position was exceptional and su- 
preme, had the en tree of their rooms. Nor was the baron behindhand 
in using his privilege, nor did he appear to waste a single thought 
upon the remarks which his constant visits could not fail to call 
forth. He had been discarded as a guide, it is true; but it was quite 
evident that he was accepted as an acquaintance, and as yet the only 
acquaintance of the family. 

But there came a day at last on which the circle of the Mohrs was 
unexpectedly widened; and it so happened that within the same 
hour Kurt and Gretchen, respectively and independently, formed 
each an acquaintance of their own. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


89 


Brother and sister were strolling one evening up the valley by the 
river’s side. The weather had become too hot now for anything 
but the laziest, most leisurely stroll, and even this was not to be 
enjoyed till near sunset. The sunny day - hours were hotter here 
than anywhere else; for the sun having once gained its height, poured 
down its fire into the narrow valley, and the glowing rocks'threw 
back the refiection of their heat, until a strong man would have 
found it an effort to crawl from one end of the short street to the 
other. 

Kurt and Gretchen, as they strolled along by the river, perceived 
that a broad-shouldered gentleman in a wide-awake hat was walking 
in front of them. They knew him by sight; he was the pride of the 
season, the fiower among the flock of guests, and popularly desig- 
nated as “the English lord.” The English lord had never been seen 
to talk to anybody, except to his invalid wife on the rare occasions 
when she was visible. Every day he might be remarked stalking 
up and down the promenade for a certain number of hours in grim 
and unapproachable dignity, and every day he was to be observed 
taking his meals in solitary grandeur at a table apart from the rest, 
and bullying the waiters in a mixture of bad French and execrable 
German. 

It soon became evident to the two promenaders that the English 
lord was behaving in an even more extraordinary and eccentric fash- 
ion than usual. He walked with his eyes on the water, coming to a 
stand-still every now and then, and frowning severely at some pool 
in the river. Two or three times he descended with considerable 
difficulty through rolling stones and weedy undergrowth to the riv- 
er-side, and proceeded to probe the shallow places with his stick; 
and finally, after several of these descents, he took up his position 
on a bridge, and leaned there with folded arms, and his eyes still 
fixed on the water. 

It was just at this moment that Kurt, who among other precocious 
habits had acciuired that of smoking, fumbling in his pocket, dis- 
covered that he had no matches. There being no one else in sight, 
he applied to the Englishman, while Gretchen wandered on by her- 
self, expecting to be rejoined within the next dozen paces. 

The Englishman, hearing himself asked for a light, took his eyes 
off the water, and turning to the questioner, gazed at him in surprise. 
He saw an individual whom he did not know whether to classify as 
an undersized man or an oversized boy, but who returned his look 
with perfect ease, and politely repeated his demand. 

There are in life two contingencies in which even an Englishmaq 
considers that the ceremony of introduction may be dispensed with; 
one of these is the saving of life. If, for instance, you should see 
a fellow-creature who cannot swim tumbling into deep water, the 
usages of society are lenient enough to sanction your pulling him 
out without pausing to name yourself or to hear his name in return. 
In this contingency the ceremony will follow of course, supposing 
the deep water not to have quite put an end to the fellow-creature. 
But in the second contingency the ceremony is absolutely dispensed 


90 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


V 


with. You can ask for a light, and you can be asked for a light, 
without any anxiety about your fellow-creature’s position and ante- 
cedents; you do not require the presence of a third fellow-creature 
to wave his hand, and mumble your names, and cause you to bow 
and scrape at each other; but having taken your light, or given your 
light, and having stood for one brief second with your two noses in 
affectiorfate vicinity, and not as much as the length of two cigars be- 
tween your two faces as the spark is kindled in the sacred weed, 
you each turn upon your respective heels, and quietly drop out of 
each other’s respective lives. 

The Englishman, having recognized the second of these contin- 
gencies, complied with the request ; and then, very much to his sur- 
prise, he perceived that this fellow-creature was not preparing to 
drop out of his life just yet. 

“ Have you lost anything valuable in the river, if I may ask?” be- 
gan Kurt, with his cigar between his teeth. 

He had become possessed at school of a respectable stock of 
French — not large, perhaps, but quite as much as the Englishman 
himself could boast of ; and it was in this language that he opened 
conversation. 

The Englishman, who had resumed his fixed gaze at the water, 
gave him a look of haughty astonishment. 

“Thank you; I have not,” was the freezing reply. But Kurt was 
not to be frozen in that way. 

“ I thought it likely, from the way you were staring at the pools.” 

The Englishman looked at him again distrustfully. He had a true 
Englishman’s distrust of foreigners, and this youth was evidently a 
foreigner. National traditions had taught him that when foreign 
youths address middle-aged Englishmen without introduction, it is 
usually for the purpose of obtaining money. This particular young 
man did not look much in-want of money, thought the Englishman, 
as he ran his eye critically over his person; but it was better to be 
on the safe side, so the Englishman still felt distrustful. 

“I fancied you might be looking for your watch or your purse, 
which you had dropped into the river,” remarked Kurt, negligently. 

The allusion to the purse was suspicious; it confirmed the Eng- 
lishman’s worst apprehensions. 

“I have not lost my purse; I have got no purse with me,” he said, 
speaking distinctly, so as to be heard through the loud rush of the 
water, and keeping his eye severely fixed on the young man; “and 
I have only got an old watch on, a silver one,” he added, emphati- 
cally. By thus removing all inducement and crushing all hopes, 
the Englishman hoped to get rid of the young man’s society; but 
the young man smoked on complacently, and did not move an inch. 

“If you had dropped anything into the river,” persisted Kurt, 
“you would not be likely to get it back again at the rate the water 
is going on down there.” 

The bridge on which they stood was the last bridge up the valley, 
and looking down from it, you looked straight upon a foaming and 
gurgling spot of the Djernis, commonly called the water-fall. \Vheu 

*. ■ 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


91 


the river was very high, the water, falling right over the two large 
bowlder-stones which stood with a short space between them, made 
a fair imitation of a cataract; but on warm days like the present 
the bowlder-stones were dry, and only a narrow stream trickled 
down between them. 

The Englishman stood contemplating the large flat pool below the 
water-fall, and felt in his mind rather doubtful as to the young man 
beside him. He still wished to be on the safe side ; but there was a 
flavor of audacity in the young man’s manner which, against his 
own will, was arousing his admiration. Kurt, on his side, was quiet- 
ly examining his companion, and wondering whether he were quite 
mad, or only suffering from some slight mental affection. He would 
not have been in the least surprised to hear him disclose himself as 
a raving lunatic in his next words ; Kurt would have taken it quite 
for granted. His reflection seemed to have some gi’ound when sud- 
denly the Englishman, without turning his head, clutched his com- 
panion’s arm and pointed towards the pool. 

“Did you see? Three pounds weight at least; three and a quar- 
ter, I dare say.” His whole countenance was transfigured in a way 
which suggested the rapture of a celestial ecstasy. 

“ Really?” said Kurt; “three pounds of what?” 

“But a salmon-trout, I tell you — a salmon-trout three pounds 
weight in that pool, jumped just that moment; didn’t you see it?” 

Kurt had only heard a slight splash and seen a tiny ripple, but he 
had now got the clew to the Englishman’s apparent insanity, and his 
mind was at rest. 

“ Is not that another?” he inquired, as a second splash and a sec- 
ond ripple disturbed the surface of the pool. 

“Yes; not such a fine one, though.” 

The Englishman had by this time quite abandoned the safe side 
— the weight of that salmon-trout had broken the ice. Kurt inquired 
whether the Englishman had caught many fish yet, and the English- 
man replied that he had not had a throw. 

“ In the first "place, there is no water in the river; in the second 
place, my tackle requires overhauling; and besides, I am not sure 
that I have the right flies with me for these pools. ” 

“So you fish with flies, do you?” asked the innocent Kurt. 

His new acquaintance turned and gave him a glance of wounded 
dignity. “Do I look as if I fished with Worm?” He pronounced 
the name of the ignominious reptile with an unspeakably contempt- 
uous elongation of the word. 

“Well, perhaps not,” said Kurt, to whom fly-fishing and worm- 
fishing meant much the same thing; different forms of the same class 
of insanity— that was all. “So, as you can’t fish for want of the 
water, or the flies, or whatever it is, you spend your days in walk- 
ing up and down — is that it?” 

“Yes, in walking up and down,” repeated the Englishman, in a 
sort of grimly complacent tone; “there is nothing else to do in this 
confounded valley — nothing to do and nothing to eat. Kot thfit I 
am particular on this last point ; but when a man on his arrival 


92 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


comes to the supper-room famished, and having merely asked for a 
mutton-chop, a plain mutton-chop, is stared at in consequence as if 
he were a lunatic at large — do you not call that a hard case?” 

“Perhaps so,” said Kurt, out of regard for British insanity, and 
thinking of Chinese bird-nest soup and roast puppies as specimens 
of barbarous taste. “ Why don’t you ask for beefsteaks?” 

“Didn’t I ask! And do you know what happened? I said to the 
waiter, ‘Bring me a beefsteak,’ and the waiter said, interrogative- 
ly, ‘ Englischr I said, ‘ Of course, English,’ being too happy to have 
discovered anything approaching to home food. Exit the waiter 
with alacrity ; re-enter with the same alacrity after an incredibly 
short time, bearing on a plate a piece of meat raw and dripping with 
blood. When I protested indignantly, they told me it was EngliscJi; 
I had asked for Eaglisch, and I had got Englisch — why was I not 
satisfied? I don’t believe the piece of meat had ever been within 
sight of the fire. And then of course they rush to the other ex- 
treme ; they give you things uncooked which ought to be cooked, 
and vice versa. When I explained to the milkman with great polite- 
ness that I object to buying boiled milk, what does the milkman do 
but fly into a passion and cast up my nation in my teeth, by declar- 
ing, through the midst of very profane language — 1 concluded that it 
was profane by the tone — that English people always eat everything 
raw. If it had not been for my wife Lady Blanche Howard’s nerves 
I should have taken some severe measures against that milkman.” 

“Lady Blanche Howard,” repeated Kurt; “then you are — ” 

The Englishman, who had been staring moodily at a pool, started 
up and interrupted Kurt almost with violence. '"Not Mylord Ouare, 
and not Sir Hovart, and not Mr. Blanche, Esq. I entreat of you not 
to call me by any of these preposterous names. You may not be- 
lieve it, but it is a fact that since my arrival here I have daily had 
my temper tried by being thus addressed ; by each and all of these 
abominations have I been separately called. I put it to you as a 
man whether this is not hard?” 

‘ ‘Very much so, ” agreed Kurt, whom nothing but the merest chance 
had saved from a similar offence. 

“ I put it to you as a man whether this is not a simple case: My 
name is Howard, and I married an earl’s daughter, being a common- 
er myself ; consequently my wife is Lady Blanche Howard. I have 
explained this over and over again, until I was hoarse ; and at the 
end they smile thankfully and say, ‘ I understand. Sir Hovart ;’ or 
thej^ simper and murmur, ‘Good-morning, Lady Houare.’ If my 
father were alive, they would compromise the matter by calling me 
Sir Howard, junior; I know they would. They persist in turning 
me into a lord, and my wife into a commoner, and they harp upon 
the subject with every imaginable variation, only that they never 
alight upon the right one by any chance ; enough to try the serenest 
temper on earth.” And Mr. How^ard, as he gave his pent-up feel- 
ings play, exercised part of them upon his wide-awake, which he had 
taken from his head and was twisting between his hands with an en- 
ergy which only the texture of a best London-made hat could Iri- 


I 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


93 


umphantly resist. The crushing of the wide-awake was an evident 
relief to his feelings, for after a minute he put it on again, and draw- 
ing a long breath, turned a composed face upon Kurt. 

“If you don’t fish, what do you do?” he asked, abruptly. The 
transition from excitement to calmness took place without any in- 
termediate phases. 

“ I mean to go up the mountains when the heat permits it.” 

“Ah!” Mr. Howard looked interested. “What is your object 
on the mountains?” 

“ Historical investigations, I believe. We are looking for a place 
w'hich my father discovered years ago.” 

“Discoveries!” Mr. Howard looked more interested. “Do you 
go alone?” 

“ I go wdth my sister. ” 

A sister! Mr. Howard lost his interest at once. He would have 
preferred the young man to be an isolated fact, unhampered by re- 
lations. This foreign youth was abnormal and exceptional, but a 
sister was a terrible disadvantage. 

“Would you like to come with us?” suggested Kurt, good-nat- 
uredly. 

“ Thank you; you are very kind,” said the broad-shouldered Eng- 
lishman, staring down at the gnome-like figure beside him; “but — 
but I do not mean to make more acquaintances at present.” 

“Well, I thought you did not look very keen about making my 
acquaintance.” 

“H’m,” said Mr. Howard. “The tnitli is, that when you ad- 
dressed me, I thought — in fact, I — I fancied — ” 

“ Don’t be shy, please,” said Kurt, kindly. 

“Well, I fanaed that you were going to ask me for money. You 
w^ere not thinking of it, were you?” with a faint revival of the former 
anxiety. 

“ No, it did not occur to me at the moment,” said the imperturba- 
ble Kurt, “or I certainly should have done it.” 

Mr. Howard grasped the hand of his new acquaintance. “You 
ought to have been born an Englishman,” he exclaimed, with an al- 
most fierce energy. The coolness, the self-possession, the insouciance 
of this strange boy-man was exactly the thing wiiich hit Mr. Howard’s 
crooked fancy to a nicety. It was almost a regret to him when, a few 
minutes later, the young foreigner took his leave, saying that his sis- 
ter was waiting for him on in advance. 

But in this Kurt was mistaken. His sister had long since given 
up waiting for him, and, wandering on unprotected, had met with 
an adventure of her own. 


94 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE BOHEMIAN. 

“Now, if ye ask me from what land I come—” 

Mokuis. 

Gretchen’s reflections were profound as she slowly followed the 
path by the river; and it was with a look of dissatisfaction that her 
eyes swept the steep hill-side. She was almost tired of scanning the 
green wooded slope, and of wondering 'where lay Oaura Dracului, 
and where stood the giant beech which her father had marked 
with three crosses twenty years a^o. Even had the heat been less 
intense than it now was, her investigations must needs have come to 
a stand-still. All her inquiries had not even enabled her to find in the 
valley any man, woman, or child who knew the fabulous hole, ex- 
cept through tradition. After the glimpse she had had of the world 
above, she no longer spoke of seeking Oaura Dracului d la bonne 
aventure among its mazes. The mountains had baffled her for the 
moment; Baron Tolnay had failed her — as a guide; and yet, so 
keen was the interest which she felt in her father’s old manuscript, 
that as she now wandered beside the Djernis it was Oaura Dracului 
alone which filled her thoughts. After having succeeded in rekin- 
dling the flame of interest in her father’s mind — after having been 
witness of the genuine disappointment 'which the first failure had 
brought him — she felt that now to abandon her project would be 
tame and spiritless. Something of obstinacy too— something of pug- 
nacity — may have served to fix the idea in her head. At school she 
had never tried for a prize without getting it; and she had no more 
idea of being beaten by these mountains than by her school-fellows. 

Meanwhile the last glow of sunset had faded from the mountain- 
topSj and the voice of the river grew more mysterious in the shad- 
ow. It craved Gretchen perforce to listen to the songs it was sing- 
ing; and presently it seemed to her that the river was singing a song 
about Oaura Dracului— or was it her own thoughts that lent the 
words to the music? Oaura Dracului, and again Oaura Dracului, 
its bubbling voice proclaimed. It grew more distinct; it grew more 
human and less watery — till Gretchen, standing still to listen, could 
hear a man’s voice singing somewhere close at hand : 

“Bats HOW sleep. 

Flowers peep. 

Red the dawn npon the hill. 

Wherefore art thou watching, lady? 

Wherefore art thou watching still ? 

Beware, beware ! 

Of Qaura Dracului beware ! 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES, 


95 


“Flies the night? 

Dawns the light ? 

Without him it dawns in vain. 

E’er another day have broken 
From the wars he comes again ; 

Then, then. 

He comes again I 

“ Breezes sigh 
Far and nigh. 

Green the mountain, green the vale. 
Wherefore art thou weeping, lady? 
Wherefore is thy cheek so pale ? 

Beware, beware 1 
Of Gaura Dracului beware ! 

“ Sighs the breeze ? 

Bud the trees ? 

Shines the summer sky still blue? ' 
Tears do blind me ; for iny lover 
Calls me false, though I am true. 

False, false. 

Though I am true. 

“ Thunders growl, 

Storm-winds howl. 

Death upon the blast doth ride. 

What is it thou seek’st, dark warrior— 
Seek’st thus in the forest wide ? 

Beware, beware 1 
Of Gaura Dracului bew'are ! 

“ Blows the gale ? 

Storms the hail ? 

Naught I hear but fury’s cry ; 

For a grave I seek, a deep one. 

And therein my love must lie : 

Deep, deep. 

My love must sleep. 

“Clouds are rent, 

Tree-stems bent. 

Forked tongues of lightning pierce. 
W’^herefore must thy love die, warrior? 
Wherefore is thine eye so tierce? 

Fly, fly ! 

There Gaura Dracului doth lie ! 

“Tears the blast? 

Speeds it fast? 

Naught I feel but fury’s sway ; 

For my love she hath betrayed me. 
Whilst I tarried far away. 

Far, far, 

’Twas far away ! 

“Spectres moan. 

Branches groan. 

Shrieks the death-crow: Thou shalt rue ! 
For His here thy lady sleepeth, 

Sleepeth with her heart so true ; 

Alas, alas ! 

In Gaura Dracului, alas !” * 


*In rendering this song, more attention has been paid to literal translation than 
to the exigencies of English versiflcation. • /, .v 


90 


THE AVATERS OF HERCULES. 


Tims ran the plaintive song, monotonous and melancholy, and the 
Djernis played a wild accompaniment to the melodious voice of the 
singer. 

The singer? Yes ; hut where could he be? In the clouds apparent- 
ly, for no human being was wutliin eye-range. Where Gretchen now 
stood the valley was extremely narrow ; but the rocks at the moun- 
tain-base were broken up, and between these blocks small patches 
of Indian corn waved their array of broad blades, apple and cherry 
trees stood squeezed wherever space would permit, and despite 
their cramped positions had thrived so luxuriantly that a corner of 
thatched roof was all that betrayed the smothered farm hut. 

It was at the foot of one of the apple-trees that Gretchen’s surprise 
had brought her to a stand-still. Of the whole Roumanian song she 
had understood nothing but the ever recurring w^ords of Gaura 
Bracului : they were enough to make her turn her eyes eagerly and 
curiously about her, and finally above her; for from the branches of 
the apple-tree a shower of fresh-scented hay now came rustling down 
upon her. 

Raising her head, she perceived that the apple-tree, curiously 
enough, was doing duty as a hay-stack. With its branches groan- 
ing under the double weight of green fruit and newly cut hay, the 
overworked apple-tree did not look unlike some strange sort of giant 
toadstool sprung up in the shade of the rocks. 

“The singer is up there,” thought Gretchen, as a renewed rustling 
swayed the branches above her head ; and for a moment she stood 
hesitating as to how to address him, for to address him she was re- 
solved. 

Her hesitation was not long; calling all her linguistical powers 
to her aid, she raised her voice and hazarded a rather uncertain 
“ Bunje Sara!” (Good-evening). 

The rustling ceased, and a moment’s silence followed; then a 
branch was bent aside, and a head which looked anything but a 
Roumanian head dived out of the green leaves. 

Gretchen had expected to see one of those dusky physiognomies 
with which the valley abounded, but to her surprise she found her 
glance met by a pair of singularly clear blue eyes, which gazed at 
her with a sort of timid inquiry from out of a pale narrow face, sun- 
tanned in complexion, but of a curious delicacy in all its lines. 
Having made a rapid inspection, Gretchen decided that this man 
would serve her purpose. If this gentle-looking creature possessed 
the necessary knowledge, there surely could be no difficulty in bend- 
ing him to her will. 

The blue eyes gazed at her full for some seconds, and then a sad 
and gentle voice answered her greeting with ^^Guten Abend!” 

“German!” said Gretchen, in astonishment. “Are you a German?” 

“I am a Bohemian,” said the man in the tree. “I come from 
near Choteborschwitz.” 

“ Really,” said Gretchen, much relieved; for her first address had 
exhausted the entire stock of her Roumanian. “ And how do you 
happen to be here?” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


97 


“I was born here.” 

^‘Then how did your father come here?” 

“My father also was born here.” 

“Oh, ’’said Gretchen, beginninj^ to think that this was a rather 
strange sort of Bohemian; “and your grandfather, was he born 
here too?” 

The question seemed to agitate the man in the tree considerably; 
and the apple-tree branches caught the agitation from him and rus- 
tled noisily. 

“No,” he said, hurriedly, while his clear blue eyes clouded, “ my 
grandfather was not born here, but he — died here. ” The man nerv- 
ously plucked otf a leaf and tore it in two. 

“He was born at Choteborschwitz, I suppose,” suggested Gret- 
chen, 

“Yes, of course, where I come from.”^ 

“ Have you been there much?” 

“I have never been there at all. I was born here, and have 
lived here all my life.” 

“ And you call yourself a Bohemian?” 

lie gazed down at her wonderingly with his straight blue eyes. 
“ Of course I am a Bohemian; I come from near Choteborschwitz.” 

“Is your wife a Bohemian too?” she asked, afraid of having 
hurt this curious man’s feelings. 

Perhaps, after all, the gentle timid creature might not be as easy 
to deal with as she had fancied ; there was a tenacity about his ideas 
which she had not expected to meet. 

He shook his head sadly. “ I have got no wife; there is no wife 
for me here.” 

“Oh, but there must be,” said Gretchen, whose curiosity began to 
be piqued. 

The Bohemian shook his head again with the same gentle, sub- 
dued melancholy. “I cannot afford the journey; my country is too 
far off.” 

“ The journey! But are there no women here?” 

Again from out of the frame of green leaves and unripe apples 
the clear eyes were fixed on her with an expression of surprise and 
reproach. 

“But they arc Roumanians!” he said, in a tone which was only 
a gentler and softer edition of that in which the Englishman had 
pronounced the obnoxious “ Worm.” “How could I marry a Rou- 
manian?” 

“I don’t know,” said Gretchen, rather puzzled, for she was not 
aware that to marry a Roumanian is as much beneath a Bohemian’s 
dignity as to fish with worm is for an Englishman. 

“My father fetched his wife from home,” went on the Bohemian. 
“He had more money than I have. It does not matter much,” he 
added, simply; “perhaps it is the wish of Providence that our fam- 
ily should die out: this plaee brings us no luck.” 

“And you live quite alone?” 

“My old mother lives with me; she has broken both her legs.” 

7 


98 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“Poor woman!” 

“Oh no; she is quite happy; she lies in bed and says her beads 
all day. She could not be more contented if she were at home in 
Bohemia, instead of in this strange land.” 

This picture of the household in the valley was not enlivening. 

“Why did your family settle here at all,” asked Gretchen, “if 
they did not like the place?” 

“ He was tempted by the Government,” said the Bohemian, look- 
ing not at Gretchen, but at his own apples. 

“ Who was tempted?” 

“My grandfather. The Government wanted a man of my nation 
to supply the visitors here with milk and butter. They promised 
him this farm if he would settle here; and the prospect of fortune 
dazzled him, for he loved money — ray grandfather — he loved it 
more than his soul.” The Bohemian heaved a profound sigh. 
“But the place brought him no luck. It would have been better 
for him had he never seen another land but his own, and never 
heard or spoken another language but his own Bohemian tongue.” 

It was evident that for some reason this grandfather was a sore 
point; and afraid of having touched upon some painful family his- 
tory, Gretchen left the subject for another. 

‘ ‘ But that song you have been singing was not a Bohemian song,” 
she said; “it was Roumanian.” 

“ So it was,” conceded the man, as reluctantly as though he were 
apologizing for his past performance. “I have had to learn the 
language of this foreign land, just as I am obliged to have my milk 
carried by a foreign girl. But I know plenty of Bohemian songs,” 
he added, promptly. 

“ I suppose so,” said Gretchen, rather apprehensively, for her ob- 
ject was not to hear Bohemian songs just then. “ But I wanted to 
ask whether you would translate for me the words you were sing- 
ing; I only understood two of them.” 

‘ ‘ Immediately, Fraulein. ” His face disappeared among the leaves, 
the branches closed over him for a moment, in the next he had slid 
down the trunk and stood before Gretchen. 

Unencumbered by the apple-tree leaves, the strange refinement of 
this peasant was even more conspicuous. He was of middle stature, 
slight, fair-haired, and not looking much over thirty; though the 
melancholy grace which pervaded his face, his manner, and his 
tone, made him look older in expression. 

He removed his cap with a gesture of courtesy that might almost 
be called polished ; his movements and his voice were softened and 
moderated as the manners of peasants rarely are. 

“ It is only a foolish Roumanian song, Fraulein, ” he observed, 
having translated to her the verses as she asked. 

“Foolish? Well, yes; all songs that are mixed up with love 
must be more or less foolish, ’’said Gretchen, whose fancy was tak- 
en by the song, despite the folly. “ But is there any foundation for 
it? Is there any truth in it?” 

The Bohemian shrugged his shoulders. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


99 


“I cannot say, Fraulein, whether there is any truth in it; if there 
is, it is not the fault of the Roumanians — for when they speak the 
truth, it is usually by accident. They do say that long ago a Roman 
soldier, believing that his lady-love had betrayed him, cast her down 
an abyss, and went mad when he discovered her innocence.” 

“It does well enough for a song, at any rate,” said Gretchen — 
“and the tune suits the words.” 

“ Did not the Fraulein say that she understood some of the words?” 

“Yes ; but only two of them. I do not speak Roumanian, but 
two of the words you sang were familiar to me.” 

“ And which were those two words?” he respectfully inquired. 

“ Those which occur oftenest.” 

Gaura Draculuif” he asked — a little anxiously, it seemed to 
Gretchen. 

“Yes; Oaura Dracului” 

The Bohemian twisted his straw hat between his hands, then put 
it on his head nervously, and took it off again. 

“These are only silly old legends,” he exclaimed in haste. 
“ Those foolish Roumanian tales are not to be believed.” 

“But such a place as Oaura Dracului does exist?” asked Gret- 
chen, keenly eying her informer. 

“Why should such a place not exist?” answered the Bohemian, 
faintly. 

“ And do you know the place?” 

He hesitated for a moment, and then, with his eyes fixed on a far- 
off patch of corn, he answered, 

“ No, I do not. 

“Yes, you do,” said Gretchen, gazing still attentively at the Bo- 
hemian, as he stood two paces from her, a foreground figure, painted 
in pale touches and seen full against the background of dark-green 
mountains, fast deepening to black in the gloom. 

The Bohemian looked from the corn-blades to the thatched roof 
of his hut, from the roof to his apple-trees, from the apple-trees to 
his own feet, from these finally straight into Gretchen’s face. He 
could not meet her eyes for a moment without speaking the truth. 

“ God help me,” he said, “ it is the first lie I have told in my life. 
Yes, I know the place.” 

“And will you take me there?” asked Gretchen, joyfully. 

“Take you there?” cried the man, starting back. '^Ileilige Mut- 
ter-Oottes of the Wunderbaum at Choteborschwitz ! Not for all the 
gold that lies buried in that devil’s hole!” 

“Gold?” repeated Gretchen, forgetting her astonishment at this 
sudden energy in the surprise of the revelation. “Is there gold in 
Oaura Dracului V 

“Thirty-eight Turkish gold-bags, one hundred and fifty silver- 
bags, nine hundred and ninety Russian rubles, five thousand Bejas 
Jirniilik ” * — eim meratcd the Bohemian rapidly — “ three golden 

* The Turkish gold-bag (at 3u,000 piastres) amounts to about i;225; X\iQSilver-haq 
(at 50(» piastres) to about £8 15s. Both the Kussiau ruble and the Bejas Jirmilik 
arc worth 3s. 


100 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


clialices, seventeen golden necklaces, and ear-rings as much as ■would 
§11 three full-grown skulls; that was the list which the last of the 
brigands confessed in the Arad prison.” 

“ Then it is a brigands’ treasure,” said Gretchen, somewhat bewil- 
dered by this dazzling list. “But how does the brigands’ treasure 
come to be down the devil’s hole?” 

“Just because it U the devil’s hole, Fraulein. The brigands knew 
well enough that they could find no safer hiding-place for their gold 
than this spot haunted by evil spirits. No one knows how they 
reached the bottom of the terrible place, or whether they knew some 
secret outlet which led to and from it. The story runs that the gold 
lies exposed, bare and open to the light of day, at a spot where the 
mid-day sun strikes it daily.” 

“But what good could they have of their treasure down there?” 
asked Gretchen, whom the whole proceeding struck as deficient in 
logic. 

The Bohemian gave a contemptuous laugh. 

“They were Roumanians, Fraulein; and give only a silver florin 
to a Roumanian, and he will bury it at once, as a dog buries a bone. 
Each of these brigands had pledged himself by the most horrible 
oaths never to touch the gold except in presence of the others. But 
the band was dispersed, and the last survivor died in prison at Arad 
two hundred years ago. The treasure was sought for, but never 
found.” 

Gretchen stood pensive; not a word of the story had escaped her, 
and with each of them her interest in the mysterious hole had stead- 
ily increased. 

“Will you show me the way there?” she asked again. 

It had grown too dark to judge of the Bohemian’s expression, but 
his voice betrayed renewed agitation. 

*‘Heilige Jungfrau mn Chotebor — ” 

Gretchen cut the exclamation short. 

“You call yourself a Bohemian,” she said, scornfully, “and j’’ou 
are as frightened by the foolish superstition as any Roumanian could 
be.” 

An instant change came over the man. lie grew all at once very 
quiet, and in a solemn whisper he replied, 

“Frightened? Yes, Fraulein, I am frightened; but not of the 
devils; it is of the Heilige Jungfrau of Choteborschwitz that I should 
be frightened, were I to show you that place.” 

“Of Choteborschwitz?” repeated Gretchen, at a- loss to see any 
connection between a far-off Bohemian place of pilgrimage and the 
abyss among the mountains. 

The Bohemian had come a step nearer, and spoke still in a whis- 
per, as though afraid that the chattering Djernis should catch up his 
secret and publish it to the world. 

“ Frilulein,” he said, slowly, “I have made a vow — ” 

“ Yes?” she asked, with strained attention. 

“Never to reveal the spot of Gaura DraculuV* 

She gazed at him searchingly and in silence. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


101 


“And the reason of the vow?” she asked at last. 

“That I cannot reveal. My father made me swear it to tlfe 
Blessed Virgin of the Wimderhaum at Choteborscliwitz. I was only 
seven years old at the time.” 

“ No vow made at that age could be binding.” 

“Every vow is binding, Fraulein. You would not have me load 
my conscience with a broken oath?” and he looked at her with his 
beseeching blue eyes, as if entreating her not to lay this burden of 
guilt upon his innocent soul. 

Baffled again ! She could scarcely believe it. What was she to 
do? How overcome these mysterious obstacles which on every side 
encompassed the discovery of Oaura Dracului? The person who 
was willing to take her there was ignorant of the spot, and the per- 
son who knew it was not willing to take her. 

“And yet I must find it!” she exclaimed aloud. 

“ I cannot break my vow,” said the Bohemian, simply. 

She argued eloquently in the falling dusk, and the Bohemian lis- 
tened patiently, opposing to the active attack nothing but a passive 
resistance, repeating only in his sad voice that he could not break 
his vow. The melancholy politeness of this gentle-spoken man was 
far more difflcult to deal with than would have been the boorishness 
of a common peasant. It was hardly possible to find an answer to 
this despairing simplicity. 

He would guide her to any other place she wished, the poor man 
humbly explained; he would take her up every mountain in the 
neighborhood — he would do anything except show her the way to 
Gaura Dracului. But nothing except Gaura Dracului would satis- 
fy Gretchen. She coldly declined the proffered services, and with 
rising temper she declared that she would find the place without his 
help. 

“ I hope to God that you will not, Frilulein, for that terrible spot 
will bring you no luck.” 

“/ am not superstitious, though you may be,” called back the in- 
censed Gretchen over her shoulder, for she had already turned from 
him; and, without vouchsafing any answer to his timid “ Gute Nacht, 
Fraulein,” she walked quickly along the homeward path, leaving the 
Bohemian standing alone under his apple-tree, and repeating mourn- 
fully to himself, 

“ I cannot break my vow.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

DEVOTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

“ Ye8, the fashion is the fashion .” — Much Ado about Nothing. 

“Yes, my dear, it is all very pretty,” said the Contessa Belita 
Francopazzi, sauntering along the arcades on the arm of her friend 
—“it is all excessively pretty, but I see no toilets.” 


102 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


The sleeve which rested on Grctchen’s arm was a clief-d'muvre of 
fashionable elegance, the color known in the Parisian world asfumee 
de cigarette, and the shape as petroleuse. The dress of which that 
sleeve was a part, expressed in the drapery of the tunic, in every 
inch of the wlant d la nihiliste, in the lustre of each button, that it 
was a dress constructed and modelled after the highest laws of 
French taste. The wearer of this faultless costume was a tall, yel- 
low skinned, vivacious Italian. She was not handsome; and devoid 
of this excess of elegance, it is impossible to say whether she might 
not perhaps have been ugly. But she never was visible except en 
toilette; and when thus seen, it was not possible to fix your attention 
on the wearer, so rapidly were your thoughts taken up by the intri- 
cacies of the toilet itself. The weaker sex fell down and adored, 
the stronger sex stood dazzled and bewildered. 

The woman was so entirely lost sight of in the dress that no one 
ever thought of criticising her features, any more than people think 
of criticising the features of the figurine on a French fashion-plate; 
and if any one ever happened to notice the proportions of her stature, 
it was only to remark that she made a good lay-figure for display- 
ing the draperies of an elaborate dress. 

It was but yesterday that Belita had arrived, and already she was 
beginning to reproach Gretchen with her “heartless deception,” as 
she called it. Beside her there walked a small, pale, whiskerless man, 
carrying her parasol, and looking up with humble admiration into 
his wife’s face. 

“But it seems to me there are a good many toilets,” said Gretchen, 
looking alDOut her. 

Misericordia! those are not toilets; they are mere dresses. I 
shall leave this place to-morrow. ” 

“Nonsense! you will not. Wait till Sunday — you may see some 
toilets in church; and then, after that, wait till Thursday — they 
dance in the Cursahn on Thursday.” 

“Do they? and they pray on Sunday! That may suit. I have a 
toilette de prih'e, designed expressly for a kneeling posture, and with 
an ahbesse train which is very effective. And for Thursday — let me 
see — my Wbrth witli the mother- o’-pearl embroidery would be the 
right thing; couleur jauibe de nymphe — not the ordinary shade, you 
know, but the new tmt, jambe de nymplie emue." 

The arcades at this hour held all the essence of fashionable life 
under its Bj^zantine columns. Every bench was occupied, every 
shop was plying a busy trade ; voices ran high, and as a sort of har- 
monious background to this foreground of discord, the variations of 
a Servian Stolo floated out through the open door of the Cursalon. 

“ Who is that bowing to you?” asked Belita, as a large black hat 
came off to Gretchen. Dr. Kokovics was passing with a packet of 
lottery-tickets in one hand, and a roll of tinsel-paper in the other, 
but had found time to execute an eloquent bow and direct a lan- 
guishing glance towards Gretchen. The glance did not escape Be- 
lita’s attention. 

“ Touche au coiurV' she inquired. “Ah, I thought so; and now. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


103 


my dear, tliat brings me to the question I wanted to ask. Margho- 
fita ” — this more solemnly — “ how stand your chances of fortune?” 

“ They could not stand better,” was the perfectly ready answer, 
in which rung an unmistakable triumph. “ In the first place, as 1 
told you, Draskocs — ” 

“Oh, spare me Draskocs! That sleepy lawyer of yours will 
never — ” 

“The sleepy lawyer, it so happens, is down at Draskocs at this 
very moment; who knows what he may do there? And, Belita, in 
the second place — ” 

“Here is another hat coming off,” interrupted Belita. “Who is 
this?” 

Gretchen had no time to answer, for Baron Tolnay was already 
close. He stopped, as a matter of course ; there was an introduc- 
tion, in which the conte was forgotten by everybody, and then 
Baron Tolnay turned to walk once down the arcades with them. 

“I wish it could be more than once,” he said with a sigh, “ but I 
have business this afternoon. Tiresome business! never so tiresome 
as when it robs me of such pleasure!” 

The turn down the arcades did not occupy more than three min- 
utes, but these three minutes were put to good use by Belita. In the 
first minute she suspected the truth, in the second she was certain of 
of it, in the third she mentally analyzed, dissected, summed up, and 
approved of the case. 

“My dear child,” she broke out, when, after' much out -spoken 
regret, Baron Tolnay had bowed himself off— “ my dear child, is 
that what you meant by ‘ the second place?’ ” 

“ Yes,” said Gretchen, in an entirely matter-of-fact tone. “ Baron 
Tolnay is in the second place.” 

“Then I should certainly put him in the first; the cut of his coat 
is simply divine. He is the omnipotent baron who reigns in the 
valley, is he not ? Yes ? I thought so. This js a perfect prize to 
have gained; only — only, Margherita — ” 

“ Only what?” 

“ Only you have not gained him yet. Oh, I have good eyes, my 
child ; I can read a man at a glance, and Baron Tolnay is what I 
should call a slippery man. Yes, just because of those fiery eyes ; 
they have had much practice, those eyes — frequent practice and hot 
practice. Don’t look discouraged, Bamhina; though no other wom- 
an has caught him yet, there is no reason why you should not catch 
this light-hearted baron. If you can, it will be a triumph !” 

There was a moment’s silence as the two women walked on, arm- 
in-arm. Gretchen’s cheek was slightly fiushed, but her lips re- 
mained locked, for no suitable answer occurred to her, and it w^ould 
not have done to betray to Belita that which she did not like to con- 
fess to herself— namely, that her vanity 'was smarting sorely under 
the doubt thus thrown upon the conquest which she had looked 
on as complete. The seed, unknown to herself, was already grow- 
ing fast. “If I can, it will be a triumph!” it echoed in her secret 
heart. 


104 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“Yes; a triumph,” repeated Belita, as her friend did not speak; 
“ but it will require management. It will require also a little of 
w-hat people call ‘flirtation.’ Not a bad thing in its way, though 1 
never cared for it myself — my toilets did not give me time to culti- 
vate the accomplishment; but I dare say, in countries where your 
marriages are not arranged for you, it may sometimes be useful. 
Such eyes as yours, however, are almost too dangerous for the 
game ; and I perceive with anxiety that you know how to raise and 
lower that silken curtain with a terrible effect.” 

“Only as a necessary part of the process,” Gretchen hastened to 
reply; and then went on to explain that, from her point of view, flir- 
tation, together with dancing, social gatherings, and morning visits, 
ranged as a certain set of means, through which help a certain end 
was to be reached. It appeared further, from the tone of her apolo- 
gy, that what charms she possessed were regarded in the same light ; 
and that her eyes, her complexion, and her hair were valued by her 
only so far as they represented a certain amount of capital to be 
judiciously invested. 

Belita listened, and burst out laughing. “ You arc w'asting your 
trouble, child. What is the use of putting on those little strong- 
minded airs with me? You know you only do so in order to keep 
up your reputation for logic. I am not in the least convinced, and 
again I say that flirtation may not be a bad thing — in moderation ; 
only I fancy that it is easily overdone ; and I hope, Margherita, that 
you do not overdo it?” 

“ But have I not explained myself? Why do you ask again?” 

“Because, my child, I have been a little uneasy about you since 
that letter — you know which — that phrase about there being only 
one woman.” 

“ Oh, don’t tell me that again,” cried Gretchen, putting her hands 
to her ears. 

“ Jtfwer^^c^’cfm.Mvhat a temper! Well, never mind, I 

meant to preach; but seeing that you are on the right road after all, 
I defer my sermon. Mind, you must give me carte hlancJie for the 
trousseau — that is all I stipulate; and, of course, you must visit us 
in Italy. I hope we shall not quarrel. I wdll tell you what you 
must not do if we are not to quarrel.” 

“Flirt with your husband?” suggested Gretchen. 

“ No, my dear child; you may flirt with my husband as much as 
you like, but you must not dress better than I do. My friendship 
18 very strong, but it is not quite strong enough for that.” 

“If that is all, our bond shall be immortal.” 

‘ ‘ By- th e-bye, what do you think of Ludovico?” asked Belita, shrug- 
ging her left shoulder towards the conte, who had dropped behind, 
and who appeared quite satisfled with gazing up at the back of his 
wife’s coiffure. 

“ He seems very fond of you,” said Gretchen. 

^ “Margherita! I am surprised at you! I don’t mean that; I mean 
his height. Ah, that is the one point I envy you in ! You two will 
be a perfect match. You have no notion what difilculties I have 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


105 


about Ludovico’s hats. I can’t find them tall enough, and I can’t 
find them to fit tight on his head. Just the one which became me 
best, which almost put us on the level, was blown awaj^ on the Dan- 
ube. I must try the hat-shops here. Ah, there is a good hat, a wide- 
awake, and coming off to you too. Another acquaintance? The 
contessa sighed regretfully. “Ludovico can never, nener wear a 
wide-awake ; it would be perfect for setting off my bonnet, but it 
would cost him half a head in stature. Pazienza ! Everybody has 
a cross to bear in this world. ” 

Mr. Howard was passing, and it was he whose wide-awake had 
been removed to Gretchen, for it was some time now since this 
Englishman had got over the disadvantage of his new friend having 
a sister. And more than this, he had been admitted into the secret 
of Oaura Dracului, and had developed an interest and energy which 
exactly suited Gretchen. Not that Mr. Howard, in his own language, 
cared a rush for historical investigation, nor for the idea of a black 
abyss wuthout bottom; but the thought of being baffled by a set of 
foreign fellows was enough to set his British pugnacity in arms. He 
promised Adalbert, while he nearly crushed the sick man’s hand be- 
tween his two, that the place should be found, even though he had 
to knock down a few Roumanians en route. In the mean time he 
cultivated Kurt’s society, using him as a confidant in whose ears to 
pour his daily stock of grievances. To-day the accumulation was 
larger than usual, but it was not until later in the afternoon that he 
came across the listener he required. ‘ ‘ Do you know what they 
have done to me?” said Mr. Howard, walking up to Kurt without 
further preamble and button-holing that young man. 

Kurt confessed his ignorance. 

“They have sent me Shakespeare to read,” snorted Mr. Howard, 
“and Longfellow. Did you ever hear of such an insult? I sup- 
pose I may expect a spelling-book next.” 

“ Who IS the offender?” 

“ That wretched little Dr. Funk; and what he means by it I can- 
not imagine. He looked quiet and unassuming enough ; I should 
never have suspected him of such — such gross insolence.” 

‘ ‘ Perhaps he meant it well, ” suggested Kurt. 

“ If you had seen the note he had the audacity to send along with 
it, you would not think so. ‘ Sir, as you give yet three months to 
our mountains, I dare to offer you some distracting lecture,’ and 
addressed— ‘ Lord Hovart, Esq.’ I put it to you as a man whether 
that is not hard? The whole thing is a hoax, you know. If it were 
not for my wife Lady Blanche Howard’s health, I should have noth- 
ing more to say to that doctor. And Shakespeare is not all; my 
temper has never before been tried to such an extent. Take my 
tub in the morning : what have I to undergo every day ? I say, 

‘ Give me a tub of cold water.’ Can anything be simpler? Do you 
know what they do? They give me a little tepid water in a foot- 
bath. I despatch the foot-bath and ask for a tub. Next day I get 
a narrow barrel four feet high, smelling all over of salt herring. I 
can’t get into that, you know, for I don’t happen to have been edu- 


lOG 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


cated as an acrobat. I explain myself clearly then — too clearly, it 
seems, for the result is that my room has become an exhibition for 
all sorts of water-holding vessels: there are low tubs and high tubs 
standing in unexpected places at all hours of the day; I dare not 
make a step without looking before me. Yesterday I stumbled 
over one and flooded the passage. The waiter and the house-maids 
appear six times a day, with a grin and an inquiry whether I don’t 
want more Wasser ? Wasser, Wasser, Wasser is being dinned in my 
ears from morning to night. When are you going to try the hills 
again?” 

Kurt was accustomed to these sudden transitions of ideas. “Not 
while this heat lasts. And when are you going to try the river?” 

“When there is a little water in it.” 

To Kurt’s uninitiated eye there seemed to be a good deal of w^ater 
in the river, but Mr. Howard declared there was none. 

The hills were continually in Gretchen’s thoughts ; but they were 
unfeasible for the moment, and a more immediate object occupied 
her. Belita had persuaded Madame Mohr to take Gretchen to the 
Gursalon on Thursday evening, when there was to be dancing. 
Baron Tolnay had supported the idea, and Ascelinde had consented. 
“ Come to me to-morrow afternoon,” the contessa said to her friend, 
“and I will show you my jainbe de nymphe silk.” Accordingly, 
Gretchen went, but entering she found Belita pale, and wringing 
her hands with an emotion of which Gretchen had scarcely thought 
her capable. 

“You And me dishevelled and despairing,” said Belita to her 
visitor. 

“Has anything happened?” 

“Eh, sicdro! a misfortune has happened.” 

“To the conte?” 

“ Oh, not to him ; I have sent him to the telegraph oflice.” 

“To whom, then?” 

“But to me, to my WOrth dress. My dear child, imagine the 
scene 'which has just taken place. I begin to unpack it — the dress 
I am to -wear on Thursday. I knew it was in box No. 9. I open 
box No. 9, and there lies the body; it was like seeing the face of an 
old friend. I lift it out tenderly — ah, so tenderly — and put it on 
the bed ; then I return for the skirt. I cannot believe my eyes as I 
look into the box, for the skirt is not there. I call my maid. ‘ Ma- 
rietta,’! say, as calmly as I can, ‘where is mj ja'nibe de nymplie 
silk skirt?’ She suggests box No. 13. A minute later she returns 
as pale as a sheet, and says, ‘No. 13 is not there.’ ‘Not where?’ I 
ask. ‘Not here in our rooms; not here at all— not come to the 
Hercules Baths!’ Margherita, can you understand my sensations? 
can you feel for my sufferings?” The contessa had risen as she 
reached the climax, but now sat down again, wringing her hands 
as before ; as before, despairing and dishevelled — that is to say, 
clothed in a perfectly got-up robe de chambre, whose details were 
more elaborate than the visiting dresses of ordinary mortals, and 
with a Tieglige cap of real lace perched upon her head. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


107 


“Wear something else,” said Gretchen, unfeelingly. 

“My dear child, I have nothing else.” 

“Wear that lilac,” pointing to a rich satin. 

“Impossible! That dress needs a combination of circumstances. 
It can only be worn in foyer of a large theatre in the height of 
the season, and on the evening of ^prerrmref 

“That dirty- white, then, might do.” 

“That is not dirty- white, my dear child; that is the newest fash- 
ionable shade — hi'd/is egaree. But it is only a standing dress — it is 
not meant to sit down in ; and really, in this heat I do not feel equal 
to standing a whole evening.” 

“That dark silk* then.” 

“Tliat Carmelite? Why, that is a toilette de car erne ; you taste 
fried fish and maigre soup merely by looking at it. No,” said the 
contessa, “my Worth dress was the dress for the occasion. Poor 
Ludovico 1 I do not blame him ; he is as much in despair as I am. 
I have sent him to telegraph to every station on the road, but I have 
little hope of recovering it in time. No,” with another sigh, “it is 
not on Thursday that my hopes, are now fixed; it is on Sunday. 
Woe to you if you have deceived me about the toilets in church!” 

Sunday came in due time — a broiling hot Sunday, when the sun, 
hanging in the quivering sky, glared down upon the rocks and 
made the cold Djernis warm. Belita’s toilette de priere was a little 
oppressive in this weather, but she could be heroic in moments like 
this. The point to be aimed at on such a day, as she explained to 
Gretchen while resolutely making her way down the old street to- 
wards the Latin chapel at the end, was not so much to he cool as 
to look it. The Latin chapel stood at the spot where, centuries 
ago, the old temple of Hercules had stood in the time of the Ro- 
mans. The conte, in the tallest of hats, carried his wife’s prayer- 
book after her. Gretchen was with them; for when the decisive 
moment came, Madame Mohr, trembling at the idea of crossing that 
burning space, had become imbued with a sudden desire to sit be- 
side poor Adalbert. “I really do not feel up to the exertion,” she 
had said with dignified melancholy; “I shall not attempt to leave 
the house to-day.” 

The church - goers had reached the steps which lead up to the 
chapel. 

“Does my tunic fall in good folds?” asked Belita of her friend, 
pausing half-way up the steps, and throwing an anxious glance over 
lier draperies. 

To the left of the chapel the wooded bank sloped upward, dark- 
green against the clear blue sky; from below on the right the sound 
of rushing water came up where the Djernis tossed, moaning, over 
its stony bed. 

“ Oh, quite right,” said Gretchen, looking the other way. 

“ You are not attending,” said Belita, with displeasure; “ you are 
looking out for Baron Tolnay, instead of telling me about my tunic.” 

“ Oh, your tunic does not need me, you vainest of all contessas; 
the folds fall smoother than any moonbeams.” 


108 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ Then let us come and pray,” said the contessfi, with a sigh of 
satisfaction ; and they disappeared together within the shade of the 
chapel. 

The chapel was small and crowded, the toilette de priere fitted very 
tightly, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour the contessa was 
glad to emerge from her bench, and to exchange the stuffy air even 
for the roasting sun outside. 

“You have deceived me,” was the first thing she said, apparently 
the upshot of her devotions; “ there was not a toilet in church.”^ 

Gretchen made no answer; she was gazing curiously at something 
in the street. 

“ What are you looking at?” asked Belita, standing on the steps 
and unfurling her gray silk parasol. 

“ Can it be?” said Gretchen. “No, it cannot be— yes, it is— it is 
mamma.” 

'^Misericordia ! so it is! Coming down the street without a bon- 
net. My dear child, what does this mean? Your mother declared 
herself too weak to leave the house to-day, and here she comes in a 
dress which ought never to have been seen in public, and without a 
bonnet.” 

“ She has got something in her hand,” said Gretchen, pressing for- 
ward. 

“ A piece of paper,” said Belita. 

“A letter,” suggested the conte, humbly. 

“ She is laughing,” said Gretchen. 

“No, she is crying.” 

“ I think she is doing both,” said Ludovico. 

They had got near enough to the approaching figure to perceive 
a strange tumult of expression on Ascelinde’s features. She ad- 
vanced towards them with the step of a tragedy heroine, her skirt 
trailing heavily in the dust, her uncovered head exposed to the beat- 
ing sun, while with the fixity of a stage-gesture she held out a sheet 
of writing towards the approaching party. Her eyes shone in a sort 
of intoxication, like the eyes of a queen who has been newly crowned. 

“ What has happened, mamma?” asked Gretchen. “ What is that 
letter?” 

“ Embrace me, my daughter,” said the mother, superbly opening 
her arms. “Come, let us return thanks for the greatness of this 
blessing;” and she dragged Gretchen forward towards the chapel. 
“Ah, have they closed it already?” — for just this instant the key 
grated in the lock, and the sacristan tripped down the steps, light 
of heart, having shut up devotion for another week. 

“That is a letter from Dr. Komers,” said Gretchen, as she caught 
sight of the writing. 

“Have you had good or bad news?” inquired Belita. 

“ Good!” said Ascelinde, in a tone of passionate grief. “Dr. Ko- 
mers is a villain, a heartless, unconscientious man,” she added, in 
the same breath. 

“Mamma!” cried Gretchen, beginning to tremble, she knew not 
why. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


109 


‘ ‘ Who is Dr. Komers ?” asked Belita. ‘ ‘ Is that the sleepy lawyer V 
He is a lawyer, at any rate,” said Gretchen; “ but whether sleepy 
or not, this letter will perhaps tell us.” 

“He is the family adviser,” said Ascelinde; “but he is without 
conscience and without heart, and I — I am the happiest woman in 
the world;” and suddenly producing a handkerchief with an em- 
broidered monogram and coronet, she burst into tears before their 
eyes. 

Of the whole party, Gretchen alone retained presence of mind. 
Leading her mother to a retired bench, she proceeded to do the only 
rational thing that was to be done — namely, to extract from Madame 
Mohr’s fingers the letter, on which several enormous tear-drops had 
already splashed. With the eyes of the conte and contessa upon 
her, Gretchen read aloud the following communication : 

“ HadhA/a, July Tth. 

‘ ‘ Dear Madame, — I reached this five days ago, and send these few 
lines in hurry to give you a strange piece of news. There being 
only one post a day from this place, I am forced to be very short in 
order to catch it : I can do no more than state the facts without de- 
tails. I have, quite by accident and in the most extraordinary man 
ner, come upon a will, which, though roughly drawn out, is indis- 
putably valid, signed by your grandfather — by reason of which will 
Draskocs now, beyond the possibility of a doubt, belongs to your 
brother Alexius, though it wdll take a few weeks before his rights 
are established. I am truly sorry for any disappointment which 
you may feel, and hope you may not be disagreeably touched. A 
detailed account shall be forwarded shortly. At this moment I am 
called home by news of my sister’s illness. 

‘ ‘ Y ours truly, V incenz Komers. ” 

“ Draskdcs is won,” said Gretchen, looking up with a slight flush 
on her face. 

FeliciscoT cried Belita, exultantly; “I would embrace you, my 
dear child, if it were not for my sleeves!” 

Felicisco !” repeated the small conte, like an echo. 

‘ ‘ But it is not ours,” sobbed Madame Mohr. “ It would have been 
ours if I had not allowed myself to be persuaded out of it by Dr. 
Komers. He may well be sorry for the disappointment which I 
feel, as it is his fault alone. To think that the home of my ancestors 
might have been ours for ten thousand florins 1 I shall never have 
such a chance again.” 

It was a delicate point to determine whether condolences or con- 
gratulations were the most appropriate for the occasion. 

The conte looked at his wife for instructions, but Belita looked 
at nothing but her friend. Gretchen’s face was still flushed, her eyes 
were shining. It was more to herself than to the others that she said, 
half aloud, “ So, after forty-three years, it is he who has ended it.” 

“ What a triumph!” burst out Ascelinde, with kindling eyes; “ but 
there is no merit in finding a will when once it is there. ’ 


110 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ Only tlwit nobody else found it,” said Gretchen. 

“The family glory is retrieved! Dear Alexius! I shall never 
forgive Dr. Komers. It is the happiest day in my life. Ah, but — 
if Draskocs were ours!” 

The struggle between smiles and tears, between triumph and de- 
jection, was so violent that Gretchen thought it advisable quickly 
to regain the privacy of their apartments. Arrived there, the first 
thing that Ascelinde did was, with the help of the whole family, to 
write out a telegram of felicitation to her brother Alexius, and then 
burst into violent sobs as soon as it was gone. Till evening closed, 
and her weary head sank down on her pillow, Madame Mohr con- 
tinued to vacillate between the extremes of passionate joy and fran- 
tic grief. Glances of triumph were quenched in tears; phrases be- 
gun in lamentations rose to exultant speeches. A bitter drop fell 
into the glass in which she was drinking her brother’s health, Alex- 
ius was alternately designated as the most exalted of mortals and 
the unworthy inheritor of so much magnificence. The memory of 
her guardian Josika was treated sometimes with veneration, some- 
times with abhorrence. On one point only did the agitated Ascelinde 
remain firm — persistent abuse of the family lawyer. All the evils 
and none of the goods of her position were to be attributed to Dr. 
Komers. He had misguided her by his advice; he gave no details 
about this mysterious will ; he was leaving the place instead of re- 
maining there to guard her brother’s interests — alas! that they were 
not her own! “ And,” said Ascelinde, coming to this climax regu- 
larly at the end of every hour’s talking, “he does not even take the 
trouble to mention how many years ago my guardian died,” 

It was the happiest and the most miserable day in Ascelinde’s 
life. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

PATER DIONYSIUS. 

“WhiU a strange thing is man, and what a stranger 
Is woman !” — Byron. 

Anna Ko:mers was lying on the sofa, paler and thinner than her 
usual self. She had been very ill, and her brother Vincenz, whom 
in the first fright of the attack she had summoned, sat beside her. 
It was but an hour ago that Vincenz came; he had been telling his 
sister the result of his journey. 

“As I was saying,” he resumed, “the house was quite shut up. 
I could not get admittance, and no one seems to know who is living 
there at present. The matter looked very hopeless. I think I might 
have turned back in discouragement if it had not been for the 
thought — ” 

“What thought, Vincenz?” asked Anna’s thin voice, so much 
more quavering than it was three months ago. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


Ill 


Vincenz passed his hand across his forehead. 

“Never mind; it is only that I cannot bear being beaten, I was 
resolved to do something decisive. As a first step I returned to the 
little inn where I had left my things, and I searched among all the 
papers I had brought with me — there were some addresses which 
Madame Mohr had given me. I scarcely hoped that they would 
prove of any use; but having no other clew to hold by, I remem- 
bered them now. There was, among others, the name of a family 
with whom Madame Mohr’s mother had been intimate. I took the 
slip of paper to the landlord of the inn and showed it to him. To 
my agreeable surprise he seemed to understand what I wanted in a 
moment. Could he direct me there? I asked. He would not only 
direct me there, he would show me the way there himself; and tak- 
ing his cap from the nail, he led the way into the street. Every 
house in the street was of the humblest and rudest description. 1 
could hardly fancy that the family I was in search of resided in one 
of these. However, my conductor never faltered ; he went straight 
up the whole length of the squalid street: it was evident that the 
family lived outside in the country. After the last of the houses 
there stood a low church of wood, stained brown ; beside it a square 
enclosure of planks with an unlocked gate. The landlord walked 
in here, apparently with the intention of taking a short cut through. 
I found myself in the middle of an irregular and hillocky burying- 
ground, where the nettles grew on the neglected graves. My con- 
ductor stopped and pointed to a long row of mounds, some marked 
with crosses and some without. ‘ That is them,’ he said, laconically. 
Five green hillocks was all that remained of the family! I stood 
and stared at the hillocks for I don’t know how long; but suddenly 
I remembered that I was losing my time. I thought I would ask to 
see the grave of Josika Damianovics, and I turned to ask the ques- 
tion ; but the landlord was gone, and I was quite alone in the ceme- 
tery. I made my way from one cross to the other, trying to read 
the names on them, but many were worn out with decay. On the 
fifth or sixth cross that I examined, I found the name of the old 
priest who had been the friend of Madame Mohr’s grandfather. He 
liad been dead for nearly fifty years. In leaving the cemetery I per- 
ceived, close along -side of the church, a house, which was a little 
whiter and a little larger than its neighbors. It was easy to recog- 
nize this as the residence of the priest; and there I went, with what 
object in my mind I really did not know, feeling more hopelessly 
discouraged than I had ever felt before in all my life. I found a 
young, raw-looking priest in possession; he welcomed me much as 
a good - natured peasant would, and informed me in Latin — a lan- 
guage which I found much spoken by all classes down there— that 
he was the third successor of the old priest whose name I mentioned, 
and whose grave I had seen. I assure you, Anna, that at this stage 
of the proceeding there came over me a sort of Hip van Winkle feel- 
ing. It seemed to me that I had slept a hundred years, and had 
awaked two generations too late. Fancy what dreary work it was 
—making inquiries about people who had died fifty years before!” 


112 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


“As if those Mohrs were worth all that trouble,” said Ann% 
plucking with restless fingers at her coverlet. “Ah, Vincenz, be- 
lieve me, they are not worth it!” 

“Do not say that,” said Vincenz, with a frown; “let me finish 
my story. I plied the young priest with questions. He could not 
tell me who lived at Draskocs; he had not been here long, and no- 
body came to church from there. He informed me that his imme- 
diate predecessor had died of low fever, and the one before that of 
cholera. He expected to die of the fever himself some day. ‘None 
of them lived so long,’ he said, ‘as the old Pater Dionysius whose 
grave you have seen.’ I asked whether Pater Dionysius had died 
of the fever also. No; he had died of some other complaint. He 
had preached remarkably good sermons when he was at his prime, 
but later he had become rather weak here — and the young priest 
touched his forehead significantly. It appeared that for the last 
few years of his life Pater Dionysius had suffered from softening 
of the brain. After a quarter of an hour’s conversation I made my 
way out; there was nothing to be got here. My visit had flattered 
the priest beyond measure. He accompanied me out of the door, 
pressing both my hands cordially. At the last moment, when I had 
one foot in the street already, the young priest, whose good-nature 
was certainly greater than his intellect, seemed suddenly to have 
been inspired by a new view of the case. He ran after me and 
caught me by the sleeve. ‘Are you a relation of his?’ he inquired, 
curiously. I did not know what he meant. ‘A relation of the old 
Pater Dionysius whose grave you have seen?’ I disclaimed any 
connection with Pater Dionysius, and the young priest dropped my 
sleeve in disappointment. My curiosity was aroused in turn, and I 
questioned him closely. He told me that when Pater Dionysius 
died, there had been neither relations nor friends forth-coming to 
claim his few worldly effects. They had therefore been put into a 
wooden box, and sent to the nearest town to be deposited at the Be- 
zirksgericht, where they lay ready to be claimed ; but nobody had 
ever claimed them. I asked, with some faint movement of interest, 
what those worldly effects consisted in. ‘ Only a few rings and a 
few books, I have heard,’ said my host. ‘If you are a relation,’ he 
said, taking hold of my sleeve again, ‘ I should scarcely advise you 
to go and claim them now. They say that after forty years un- 
claimed effects are sold for the benefit of the poor. Those rings 
and books may be sold now; and even if they are not, you will have 
to pay a sum as inheritance-tax ; it will probably be greater than the 
value of the things. I should not advise you to go.’ He meant it 
very well by me, honest man ; but I went all the same. I spent two 
hours in searching for a conveyance, and after I found it, I spent 
eleven hours on the road.” 

“ Iluin to your health,” murmured Anna’s pale lips. 

“ My health can afford it,” laughed her brother. “ I hardly felt 
tlie want of food, I assure you, though I subsisted on raw bacon dur- 
ing the drive.” 

Anna, thinking of the dainty dishes which she loved to serve up 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


113 


hot to Vincenz, could find no words here, hut wrong her hands in 
silent anguish, as a vision of raw bacon rose before her eyes. 

“I employed those eleven hours,” said Vincenz, “principally in 
refiecting upon my folly. It did seem rather a wild-goose chase to 
start off on the track of the meagre property of an old priest, long 
dead. The very fact of its lying unclaimed proved that it must be 
worthless. But in my profession we are taught to leave no stone 
unturned. I was resolved to do my best; and she should know I 
had done my best ” — he broke off, for he met his sister’s eyes fixed 
hard upon him. Anna did not speak; but that glance was so pierc- 
ing, so penetrating, that Vincenz colored as no word could have 
made him color. 

“It is no use,” he resumed quickly, “ to give you all the details of 
my journey and of my search. I was sent from one place to an- 
other, and from one man to another, until my brain began to reel. 
There was a want of limits and order, at the BezirksgericM down 
there, perfectly perplexing to a civilized mind. Finally the right 
box was hunted up, worm-eaten and falling to pieces. In it there 
were two rings of little value, a large stone seal and three or four 
books in mouldy covers. The walls of the BezirksgericM were so 
damp that one of the books had green marks on the binding. It 
was the first one I took up, and in it I found some loose papers, a 
bill for wax-candles dated 1820, an Episcopal letter with a red seal 
half crumbled away ; this was wrapped up in silver paper, and had 
evidently been prized as a treasure. There were also some papers, 
apparently in the dead priest’s handwriting, headings for a sermon 
which perhaps had never been preached, also a list of the couples 
to be married shortly. Caligraphy and spelling did little honor to 
Pater Dionysius’s education; but I fancy I recognized among the 
betrothed couples some of the names I had seen the day before on 
the wooden crosses in the cemetery. Along-side of this list there 
was another paper, and in another handwriting. It was not more 
than a few lines and a signature, written out in Latin, but it was 
enough to repay all my trouble. Here was a contingency upon 
which no one had ever reckoned. The will of old Count Damiano- 
vics, Madame Mohr’s grandfather, had lain here for nearly fifty years 
among the unclaimed effects of Pater Dionysius; and this will in a 
few words left the whole of his property to his eldest son Alexius, 
declaring that the younger, Josika, had received his portion and was 
entitled to no more.” 

“ A nice sort of friend,” said Anna, querulously, “who hides away 
a will in that way !” 

“My dear Anna, remember that the poor old man suffered from 
softening of the brain. The matter can now never be entireljr cleared 
up; but as far as I understand the case, old Count Damianovics must 
have confided his will to the hands of the old priest, thinking that 
such an unusual document would be safer under ecclesiastical pro- 
tection; and no doubt down in those wild parts it ought to have 
been. But the pater’s brain must have given way very soon after 
his friend’s death; or else, seeing the property pass into the right 

8 


114 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


hands, perhaps he did not think it worth producing. It is difficult 
to say whether Madame Mohr’s father knew that such a will existed 
or not. You have no notion of the way in which things are con- 
ducted down there; or rather, are not conducted, being left entirely 
to themselves. However, it is no use conjecturing; there the will is 
now, and according to it, Madame Mohr’s brother is the present pro- 
prietor of Draskocs. The claim is not established yet, hut the mat- 
ter is clear as daylight. It was on the same day on which I found 
the will that your message reached me, and I came back here straight 
without returning to Draskocs. The rest can be done by writing, 
and if Madame Mohr must see the place, she will scarcely need me 
for that.” 

“ So you have ended the cause after so many years,” said Anna, 
while her fingers crept over the coverlet towards her brother’s hand. 

‘ ‘ I am proud to have done so, though it is no merit of mine ; the 
matter was such a chance, and yet so absurdly simple. Who would 
have thought of a wooden box at the Bezirksgericht^ while we were 
breaking our heads over irregular documents?” 

“Who would have thought of it? Of course nobody but you; 
and you don’t imagine that that precious Count Alexius will thank 
you for having driven eleven hours in a cart and lived on cold ba- 
con?” 

“ Poor man!” said Vincenz, with a calm smile; “ I do not expect 
much thanks from him. I fancy he is seldom sober enough for any 
such sensation as gratitude. I have had no answer from Pesth, 
though my letter must have reached some days ago.” 

“ You will get no thanks from anybody, Vincenz.” 

“ I did not do it for the sake of thanks.” 

Anna looked at him piercingly, while she held his hand. “You 
are still thinking of that girl, Vincenz.” 

Vincenz turned away and sighed. Yes, he was still thinking of 
that girl; her image was burned into his soul. He did not care to 
deny it ; he never attempted to struggle with it. He thought of her, 
and of her always. 

Anna drew her hand slowly away, and watched him as he sat 
plunged in thought. Surely there had never been so fine a man as 
her brother Vincenz. No one was as happy as Anna Komers in her 
blind idolatry of devotion. 

“I hardly expected you to answer my summons so soon,” she said 
presently; and Vincenz started out of his thoughts. His thoughts 
had led him so far away that he had a long way to come back. 
“ Of course I came when I heard you were worse, Anna.” 

Anna plucked at the coverlet again. “Yes, yes,” she said, with 
some asperity; “ but I fancied that, being down there in those parts, 
you would have found it shortest to return by the Hercules Baths.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, you thought so?” said Vincenz. He had thought so himself. 
While he was down there, he had taken much trouble to rack his 
brain for a plausible excuse which would justify him in going round 
by the Hercules Baths. He had rejected them all in turn as ground- 
less and shallow. It had been almost a relief to turn his back upon 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


115 


the country, for the yearning had been a torture; but now that he 
had put half an empire between himself and the Hercules Baths, all 
those rejected reasons grew plausible again, and the torture was 
worse than before. 

You may be right, Anna: it would, after all, have been wiser if 
I had gone to the Hercules Baths and talked over the matter with 
Madame Mohr. However, there is nothing to be done now; I must 
give the details in writing.” 

Saying this, Vincenz went to the writing-table and laid out a sheet 
of letter-paper. Anna followed him with her eyes, and a very faint 
smile flickered round her pinched lips for a moment; but that was 
while his back was turned. 

“Yes, it is too late,” repeated Vincenz, as he slowly dipped his 
pen in ink. He said it as if he wished to be contradicted; but Anna 
did not offer to contradict him. 

“Let me see; I must give the details in writing.” 

“Of course you must,” she said; “why don’t you begin?” 

“I was thinking,” said Vincenz, laying down his pen for a mo- 
ment, “ that if I had known that this attack was going to be past its 
worst so soon, I would have followed your advice, Anna, and gone 
round by the Hercules Baths. It is so much easier to explain things 
verbally ; and a business conversation — ” 

''My advice!” broke in his sister, shrilly. “I never advised you 
to do anything so insane. If you follow my advice, you will never 
go near that girl again — cold and heartless coquette as she is — who 
does not even know the meaning of the word ‘love,’ and who in- 
tends to sell herself to the flrst rich husband she can catch. Yes, she 
does. You need not shake your head — she told me so herself ; and 
her courage in saying it is the only thing I like about her. Crush 
her out of your heart — that is my advice. Business conversation, 
indeed!” 

Vincenz took up his pen again hastily and began writing rather 
at random. Feeling guilty made him feel angry; he had to con- 
strain himself to be silent. He wrote half a page, but his heart was 
not in his writing: his eyes wandered away, and he was staring at 
the dusty ivy-plant in the window ; he looked at the shabby carpet ; 
he counted the flowers on the wall-paper, which was a strange thing 
for a lawyer to do. He went through a minute calculation as to 
how long the letter would take to reach the Hercules Baths. On 
Thursday evening it might be there ; a person starting to-day could 
be there as soon as the letter. 

“Did you say anything, Anna?” asked Vincenz, turning his head; 
he thought he had heard a sound coming from the sofa. But there 
was no answer, and he returned reluctantly to his writing. When 
he had written another line he got up quickly, for he had heard that 
sound again. It was not a word being spoken, but it was a sob; and 
as he went up and leaned over his sister, he saw that she was cry- 
ing. 

“ Anna, dear, are you worse?” But she had taken both his hands 
and was kissing them. 


116 


THE WATEES OF HERCULES. 


“ Vincenz, you must go; it is not right that I should keep you,” 

“Where to? I cannot leave you.” 

“You can, you must. Go down to the Hercules Baths. I shall 
never get well while I see you unhappy. Vincenz, if yOu love me, 
you must go.” 

To the Hercules Baths! Vincenz felt his heart leap with a sud- 
den shock of joy. A delightful melody seemed to chime in his ears, 
as if bells were ringing all around; and they all rung out with mu- 
sical tongue, “To the Hercules Baths! To her! to her!” How tri- 
umphant was the sound! He felt like a conqueror; he drew him- 
self up, letting Anna’s hands drop without noticing it. And this 
tumult of joy was all because he was going to avail himself of the 
right which every free man has of taking a railway-ticket in any di- 
rection he chooses. He was not a conqueror — he was a rejected 
lover ; but he was to see his scornful beauty again, and he was hap- 
py. Ah, but could he see her again? could he leave Anna just now? 
W hat selfishness to accept her sacrifice ! Vincenz began to tremble 
as he saw his vision fading; it had sprung into life but a minute 
a^o, yet so precious was it already that it left everything black be- 
hind it. Through the black confusion he held blindly to one point 
— his duty to his sister. He would not be less generous than Anna 
was. 

“ No, Anna, I cannot go,” he said, bending over her again. The 
sacrifice was made, but the struggle had been so fierce that Anna, 
looking up at him, wondered at the pallor of his face. 

“ There is no one to take care of you, Anna, if I go.” 

Anna thought deeply for a moment. “If you do not go,” she 
said, mysteriously, “you will have to live here alone.” 

Vincenz did not understand. 

“Did I not tell you that I have promised to visit Barbara Bitter- 
freund? You know how she has nursed me in my illness.” 

Yes. Vincenz remembered some talk of that sort. Barbara Bit- 
terfreund had recently opened a choice establishment in a house out- 
side the town, where young ladies were to be prepared for medical 
examination. 

It gave Anna very little trouble to convince her brother that the 
country air was a necessity, if she was ever to recover her strength ; 
and after a few minutes’ talk, Vincenz, nothing loath, had become 
impressed by the belief that his staying in the town at present would 
be unpardonable selfishness on his part. 

In five minutes more he was looking up time-tables with feverish 
eagerness. A few days ago, when down at Draskdcs, it had ap- 
peared to him a ridiculous and illo^^ical proceeding to make a jour- 
ney of twelve hours in order to visit the Mohr family ; now he was 
starting on a journey three times that length, with the same object 
in view, and yet he quite failed to be struck by any want of logic 
in the proceeding. 

“If any message should come to me, Anna,” said Vincenz, when 
the moment of departure was reached— “ anything relating to Dras- 
kocs or the Mohrs — forward it on to me at once ; here is the ad- 


TUE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Ill 


dress ” — and he scribbled it down upon the blank sheet of the letter 
which lay on the writing-table. It was the letter he had be^n to 
Madame Mohr ; but now it need not be finished, since he himself 
was going in its place. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

BROKEN GLASS. 

“ Auch ich war einmal auf dem Tanz Salon.” — Kabt. Daubgbkn. 

It was quite dark when Dr. Komers reached the Hercules Baths 
on Thursday evening. The dim outlines of a few large buildings, 
and a flood of light streaming from the central one, was all that 
Vincenz could gather of his surroundings. Having made his way 
to the Mohrs’ apartments, he found them dark, and apparently de- 
serted. A sleepy house-maid informed him at last that Herr Mohr 
had retired for the night, and that the rest of the family were in the 
Cursalon. 

“ What are they doing there?” 

“Dancing, of course.” 

“ Dancing?” 

“Yes, and the baron is with them.” 

Dr. Komers descended the stairs, feeling a little chilled. Into a 
place where they were dancing he could not go, for he could not 
dance, and he was in his dusty travelling-clothes. But, perhaps, re- 
flected Vincenz, as he made his way towards the central building — 
perhaps he could catch a glimpse of Gretchen through the windows ; 
without such a glimpse to live on, he did not think he could sleep 
that night. Who was “the baron,” he wondered, while he stumbled 
up and down steps in the dark, and just saved himself on the verge 
of a stone pond in the Curgarten. Who was the baron, and why 
need the baron be with them? 

Drawing near to the central building, the strains of music floated 
towards him through the open doors. All the doors stood open to 
the night air, and a small crowd of lookers-on were grouped at the 
entrance, under the covered arcades. Vincenz stood among them, 
and from over their heads he scanned the ball-room. 

Between dancers and spectators there was a large society assem- 
bled; but the spectators were the larger portion, for it was only the 
very youngest of the young who could brave the exertion of danc- 
ing on a still and sultry summer night like this. Of the Roumanian 
women present, even the youngest of the young were stout, and 
therefore preferred to sit fanning themselves indolently with palm- 
leaf or feather-fans, rather than exert themselves in waltzes or even 
quadrilles. There was a pleasing medley of costume, even among 
the men. W^ide Turkish trousers and broad leather belts were as 
frequent as dark coats; every shade of gray and brown was amply 


118 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


represented; while tail-coats were almost exclusively confined to the 
waiters, who darted black and noiseless across the scene^skimming 
between the whirling couples, and carrying refreshment to many a 
panting Roumanian lady who languished upon her velvet seat. 

Vincenz had twice looked round the room without seeing any- 
thing that he thought w^orth seeing, when all at once a tall slight 
figure, draped in soft pink shades, floated towards him — past him. 
It was over in a moment, but she had been so near that lie could 
have counted even the pearls on her neck. Would she come again? 
Yes, the figure in pink was coming round once more on the arm of 
the se.mc partner ; and this time Vincenz did not look at her, but 
only at the partner. He was a young man, faultlessly attired in 
evening dress, waltzing to perfection, and smiling as he looked into 
Gretchen’s face. Oh, the torture which that smile was to Vincenz! 

“ Will you please let me pass?” he said to the person in front of 
him. 

The person complied, and Dr. Komers entered the big room. 
Perhaps the sight of so many varieties of coats had encouraged him 
to put his own travel-stained suit under the lamplight, or perhaps 
he had lost sight of all such social considerations. 

It was towards Ascelinde, sitting in solitary state, that the lawyer 
made his way. Before he reached her, Gretchen had returned to 
her mother’s side. Vincenz hastened his steps, but in the next mo- 
ment slackened them, for the partner in the faultless evening dress 
had sat down beside her. 

“Dr. Komers I” cried Gretchen, in an accent of unspeakable sur- 
prise. 

“Dr. Komers!” echoed Ascelinde. 

“ How have you come?” 

“When did you come?” 

“Why have you come?” This last question from Ascelinde, and 
with rising agitation, for the horrible thought had occurred to her 
that Dr. Komers might be come to tell her that Draskocs was, after 
all, not won. 

“Well,” said Dr. Komers, who was not quite clear in his own 
mind as to why he had come, ‘ ‘ I thought it better to make a run 
down here, and talk over business personally.” 

“ Then you did not go home after all?” 

“Not exactly; that is to say — yes — I did go home, but I somehow 
forgot that I should have come here first.” 

Madame Mohr was mystified, but at the same time pacified. In 
her gratification at this tribute of respect, she quite forgot all the 
indignant speeches which were to have crushed the faithless law- 
yer. 

Vincenz, from the first word that he had said, had felt a pair of 
eyes fixed hard upon him. They were black, brilliant eyes, and he 
took an instant dislike to their expression. His answers to Asce- 
linde’s remarks were absent and iiTclevant, for no business conver- 
sation could be attempted in a ball-room ; and besides, the whisper- 
ing along-side disturbed his peace of mind. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


119 


‘‘ Who is that gentleman?” Baron Tolnay was inquiring in a tone 
which, because of the gentleman’s vicinity, had to be considerably 
lowered. 

“ He is Dr. Komers, our family lawyer.” 

‘‘Oh, your family lawyer!” 

There was in Baron Tolnay’s tone and eyes a return of that mock- 
ery which Gretchen had found so provoking on the day when they 
had ^at on the green meadov/. She answered, therefore, a little 
coldly, 

“ He is not only our lawyer, he is also our friend.” 

“Friend! friend! what a wide expression! the most elastic word 
in the dictionary.” 

“Do you think so?” said Gretchen, absently, for she was just 
then listening to Dr. Komers’s stammered excuses to her mother. 
She decided that the excuses were lame. 

“Whose friend do you mean?” Baron Tolnay asked. “Your 
friend? Your mother’s friend?” 

“Everybody’s friend, of course.” 

“ What horrible generalities! I should never be satisfied with be- 
ing everybody’s friend.” 

“ Are you in danger of being that?” 

“Frilulein Mohr, you crush me; you misconstrue my words.” 

“I hate roundabout speeches.” 

‘ ‘ I shall never be roundabout again ; in future I shall speak like 
this : There is only one person whose particular friend I care to be. 
Is that distinct enough?” 

“I think I like your roundabout speeches better, after all,” said 
Gretchen. 

By dint of listening with her left ear she had ascertained that Dr. 
Komers had not offered a single rational explanation of his appear- 
ance here ; and she was asking herself, merely out of curiosity, what 
then could have brought him? 

“ I am sure,” said Baron Tolnay, while he gazed down reflective- 
ly at his beautifully pointed, beautifully polished, and altogether 
beautifully fashioned evening shoe — “I am sure that your family 
lawyer, or family never makes roundabout speeches.” 

“Never; but how do you know that?” 

Baron Tolnay cocked his right foot, which was crossed over the 
left, so as to get a view of his shoe en projil. 

“ Oh, because he does not look like it. A man who has so much 
— what shall I call it? — self-possession as to come into a ball-room in 
his travelling-coat, could never be guilty of any such weakness. He 
has a fine disregard for personal appearances;” and Baron Tolnay 
broke into a very subdued and perfectly inoffensive laugh. The 
tall, stooping man, with the spectacles and the loose gray coat cer- 
tainly did make a conspicuous figure even in this big room. Twice 
already had unwary dancers been all but tripped up by his long 
legs, which he was now attempting, not very successfully, to dis- 
pose of under the red velvet bench. 

After a minute it stmek Gretchen that Baron Tolnay had laugh- 


120 


THE WATERS OP HERCHLES. 


ed quite enougli; so she attempted to damp his merriment by inquir- 
ing whether he imagined that he would have appeared to greater 
advantage under the cireumstanees. 

Of course Baron Tolnay thought so, although he did not say so. 
He stopped laughing and looked grave, all except his eyes, and re- 
sumed, at the same time, the examination of his shoe, gazing at it 
from a bird’s-eye point of view for a change. 

“ It is not fair to make me criminate myself ; but given these cLrcum- 
stances, I think 1 should have the sense to keep clear of a ball-room.” 

Istvan privately thought that it would require a great deal to 
make him put himself as much to a disadvantage as this German 
lawyer was doing. 

“ But supposing you were very anxious to see somebody who was 
in the ball-room?” 

“Ah!” Baron Tolnay stroked his black mustache and raised his 
eyebrows, “now you come to particulars; I always like particulars. 
In such a case ” — and as he met her gaze full, there burned in his 
black eyes an ardor which was quite new to Gretchen — “in such a 
case, neither fire nor water would keep me back, let alone a dusty 
travelling-coat.” 

Gretchen wished most heartily that she had kept to generalities ; 
she sat twirling the bracelet on her arm and made no answer. These 
skirmishes with Baron Tolnay were always like playing with fire; 
there was something in his eyes, now and then, which a word or a 
touch could strike into flame. He frightened her somewhat, and he 
puzzled her still ; he was both cool and hot, both self-possessed and 
impetuous, this brilliant, fascinatipg, perplexing man. 

“But, Fraulein Mohr,” said Baron Tolnay, gravely examining the 
sleeve of his evening coat, “ to pursue the subject. You know more 
about your family friend than I do. You do not suppose that there 
is anybody here whom he is especially anxious to see. I thought 
he only came here to talk over business with Madame Mohr?” 

Baron Tolnay looked up so innocently as he asked the question, 
that Gretchen, though she opened her lips for an impatient answer, 
felt herself disarmed. She was puzzled again : was this question to 
be taken as a piece of audacity, or was it as harmless as it pretended 
to be? She answered, with great decision, that of course Dr. Ko- 
mers had no other object but business. 

“ Only business; yes, I thought so,” said Baron Tolnay: “when 
people have reached that age, they usually do not care for anything 
but business.” 

“ What age do you suppose he has reached?” asked Gretchen, who 
felt it her duty to defend Dr. Komers, as a friend of the family. 
She was quite accustomed to regarding him as belonging to an older 
generation, but she did not see that Baron Tolnay had any right to 
make jokes upon the subject. 

“ Oh, nothing very high; something about twice my age (twice 
twenty-four does not make much), and about thi*ee times yours.” 

Baron Tolnay happened to be twenty eight; but he went hy tlm 
elastic principle that a man is only as old as he looks. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


121 


“ That would make me twelve years old. Thank you ; I don’t as- 
pire to quite as much youth as that.” 

“Strange! I suppose it is his spectacles that make him so old- 
looking.” 

“How ill-natured you are 1” 

Gretchen wondered how she ever could have made the mistake of 
describing Baron Tolnay as the opposite. The word ‘ ‘ good-natured ” 
was mentally erased. Baron Tolnay’s place in the catalogue was all 
corrections and erasures. 

“Ill-natured ! I ! Have you not found out yet that I am the best- 
natured man in the world?” 

He looked so genuinely surprised at her want of perspicacity, and 
so utterly without any ill-nature as he said it, that again Gretchen 
felt ashamed of having doubted him. 

“Have you never seen a short-sighted man before?” she asked. 

“ Plenty; I can tell you some excellent stories about some, about 
one in particular, who reminds me very much of Dr. Eomers. I 
must keep them for later, though— I see, alas! that I am wanted. 
There is Kokovics making signals of distress. I cannot be blind 
any longer. ” 

Dr. Komers moved into the seat beside Gretchen. He believed he 
had a great many things to tell her; but the only thing he could 
think of now was an inquiry after her father’s health, to which she 
responded by an inquiry after his sister’s. And then Vincenz ap- 
peared to be lost in thought, and Gretchen examined her fan in 
silence. 

“You have had a great deal of trouble about Draskocs,” she ob- 
served at last, 

“Oh no, it was no trouble at all,” said Vincenz, with a rush of 
joy at his heart. What were now eleven hours in a jolting cart, 
and three meals on raw bacon, compared with this crumb of thanks 
from her? What had he done to be thus rewarded? 

“And you have really seen Draskocs?” she said, looking at him 
with a sort of envy. “ Please, Dr. Komers, tell me all about it.” 

Dr. Komers took off his spectacles and rubbed them. “ I will tell 
you another time — to-morrow if you like.” 

“Yes, to-morrow,” she agreed. It stood to reason that such a 
vast subject could not be d^one justice to in a ball-room. “Only 
tell me,” she began; but at that inoment she felt a quick tap on her 
shoulder, and looking up, became aware that Belita was standing 
before her in a magnificence of attire which baffled all description. 
Every face in the room was turned towards her, like flowers towards 
the rising sun. Before the eyes of the lazy Roumanian women who 
paused in the middle of their ices with the cooling spoon at their 
lips, there seemed to float a far-off vision of Parisian glory, conjured 
up by that resplendent figure. Never before had such a triumph of 
millinery adorned this oriental Giirsalon at the foot of the rock. 

“Only tell me what?” repeated Belita, sending her eyes with the 
rapidity of lightning up and down the lawyer’s figure, holding at 
the same time her handkerchief to her cheek as if she were in pain. 


122 


THE WATERS OF nERCULES. 


“So you have come after all,” cried Gretchen, “ in spite of your 
toothache. How foolish of you !” 

“ Congratulate me, my dear child, instead of abusing me; I have 
got mjjarnbe! How could you expect me to stay at home? Let 
me sit down near you— there — a little more room for the train — and 
I wull tell you about it. An hour ago imagine my dejection, as, 
brooding in my dressing-gown, I was just resigning myself to bed 
and to a stocking full of hot salt for the night, when enter Ludovico 
in a state of excitement which has doubled him in my estimation, 
«and crying out, ‘ The box is come — the box is here!’ Do not try to 
imagine my joy, for your fancy would fall short. A basso il sale / 
I flung the stocking to the ground. I am suffering the tortures of a 
martyr on the rack, but I am happy 1” 

Although Belita’s left cheek was swollen out of all proportion, in 
a manner which gave her the appearance of a fashion-plate out of 
drawing, the expression of her countenance did not belie her words. 
There was something heroic in her bearing. 

“How could you be so ridiculous as to come like this?” said 
Gretchen, indignantly. “ Why did you not send your dress instead 
of you; it would have done just as well.” 

“No, it wmuld not, my ’dear child; it would not have been doing 
justice to the dress.” 

“ How vain you are, Belita!” 

‘ ‘ Oh, if it comes to that, not half as vain as you are, Bambina. I 
am only fond of my clothes; that is what confuses you. You know 
you would rather die than show yourself with a swollen face.” 

“Much rather,” said Gretchen. 

At this juncture Dr. Komers was introduced by Ascelinde. 

“Very happy to make the acquaintance,” said the contessa aloud. 
“ Coat tits ill— shape of necktie out of fashion— boots antediluvian,” 
she noted mentally. “Don’t like his look at all. Come to talk over 
business, has he? — h’m! Where is Baron Tolnay, my dear?” she 
asked Gretchen. 

Baron Tolnay was here, there, and everywhere. He was making 
himself universally agreeable and useful in his character of qiiasi 
host — getting chairs for old ladies, and ices for young ones; direct- 
ing the waiters, and attending to every one’s wishes. Finally, he 
made a rush to the musicians’ gallery, and presently Gretchen heard 
her favorite quadrille striking up. Baron Tolnay was down again 
in the room. Could Gretchen tell him where her brother Kurt was? 
There was a dancer w^anted to complete the quadrille. Gretchen 
believed he was in the supper - room, smoking with Mr. Howaard. 
Baron Tolnay w^as in the supper-room in an instant. Had Kurt any 
objection to take a place in a quadrille? No, Kurt had no particu- 
lar objection, provided that the lady was not positively bad-looking 
and that her mustache w’as not more than an inch long. A minute 
later Gretchen w^as led off by Baron Tolnay, and Vincenz found him- 
self alone with Madame Mohr and the contessa. He scarcely count- 
ed the conte, who stood along-side with his crush-hat in his hand, 
finding it happiness enough to look at his wife, and take note of 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


123 


the jealous glances which every woman in passing threw upon the 
jambe de nymiihe emue. 

“ No, Ludovico caro, you had better not sit down,” Belita had said 
earlier, when the small conte had attempted to rest his legs for a 
moment. “lam sorry for him,” she had added aside to Gretchen ; 
“but you see it is the only way to make up for his not being able to 
wear a hat in a ball-room.” 

Vincenz sat watching the maze of figures in a sort of dream ; but 
he saw only one couple in all that crowd. He knew now who was 
“the baron,” and already he had begun to hate the baron with a 
most unchristianlike vehemence. The unusual sounds and sights 
were working upon his fancy; he felt first a faint regret at not being 
able to dance, then an ever-growing wish that he could turn, and 
twist, and hold his partner’s hand, as Baron Tolnay was doing over 
there. He never listened to the conversation beside him. 

“It is a fundamental rule,” the contessa was observing, “that a 
blonde should never wear pink — the result is usually fatal; but 
Margherita must be put down as an exception. I am bound to con- 
fess that I have never seen her look as lovely as she is looking to- 
night, and her dress is the prettiest among the dancers. You see 
toilets here that make you feel quite ill. Look at that colossal Rou- 
manian in green ! Those rubies are lost upon such a creature ! Not 
that perfect rubies are the fashion now ; there has been quite a run 
upon fiawed stones lately at Paris.” 

“Ah,” said Ascelinde, “I remember some magnificent rubies 
among our family jewels at Draskocs. I wonder if Alexius would 
lend them to me? They would be mine now, had I only followed 
my own instinct and paid these 10,000 florins” — and she cast a bit- 
terly mournful glance towards her legal adviser. 

Thus conversation flowed on ; Belita talking of dress, and Asce- 
linde of Draskocs. But Vincenz never talked at all until the qua- 
drille was over. 

It was past eleven now ; many people were gone ; the group of 
spectators was dispersed, and some of the glass doors had been half 
closed. When the next waltz struck up, there was a visible decrease 
in the number of the dancers. 

The waltz was no better than the quadrille for Vincenz. What 
good was there in sitting beside Gretchen, since she never sat for 
more than a minute at a time? 

“You have started a search, I hear,” he began ; and then a black 
shadow was hovering in front of Gretchen, and she w^as whirled olf 
round the room. 

“You have started a search among the moun— ’’thus he began 
again as soon as she had returned, and again with the same result. 

“You have started a search among the mountains,” he succeeded 
at last in saying. 

She was opening her lips to answer, when once more a partner 
presented himself. It was Baron Tolnay this time ; and it seemed, 
n*om the smile on his face, that he took a particular pleasure in in- 
terrupting conversation. 


124 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


This sort of thing was very irritating, Vincenz felt; and he wished 
more and more that he had learned dancing in his youth. It did 
not look so very difficult to do after all, he thought, as he observed 
how Baron Tolnay turned now to the left, now to the right, some- 
times getting over a great deal of ground with a few steps, some- 
times revolving for a minute together on one spot. 

Gretchen returned on Baron Tolnay’s arm. 

“ You were going to tell me about the search,” resumed Vinccnz, 
doggedly. 

“A search!” exclaimed Baron Tolnay, sitting down at Gretchen’s 
other side. “Is there anything lost? I shall have the room ran- 
sacked at once. But ”— in a lower tone— “ if it is a glove or a flower, 
I hope you will not be so cruel as to ask for it back again. ” 

This was getting more and more irritating, Vincenz reflected, and 
the room certainly felt uncommonly hot. 

“You will stop dancing now, I suppose, Fraulein Mohr?” he 
broke in; “you must be too tired almost to stand.” 

“Don’t you know yet that nothing ever tires me. Dr. Komers?” 

“Dr. Komers does not seem to have much patience for the fol- 
lies of youth,” laughed Baron Tolnay, in his light-hearted fashion. 
“ Think of our tender years, and forgive us. Dr. Komers. 

That “ us ” and the laughter in Istvan’s eyes jarred upon Vincenz. 
To think of “ their ” tender years was to think of his own sober age, 
and just at this moment he did not feel drawn to think of it. Before 
he had found an answer, again a black shadow fell, and again Gret- 
chen was off round the room. 

Baron Tolnay and Vincenz were close to each other now. Baron 
Tolnay with his head thrown back against the wall and his legs 
crossed, fanning himself with his fine cambric handkerchief, looked 
as thoroughly in his element as a trout in a river, or an eagle on a 
mountain-top; and Dr. Komers looked as thoroughly out of place as 
the eagle could have looked in the river, or the trout on the mountain. 

“This is a tropical heat,” said Baron Tolnay, opening conver- 
sation. 

“ Quite,” said Vincenz, coldly. 

Baron Tolnay fanned himself more vigorously than before. 

“Ah, you non-dancers have the best of it; I declare I almost wish 
that I was out of the lists.” 

Vincenz was silent. 

“It is hard work in such weather for us poor dancers, while you 
others can look on in coolness and comfort.” 

“ I know that I do not feel cool,” said Vincenz, with an unaccount- 
able movement of temper; “ in fact I was just thinking that I have 
never before had such a clear idea of what a red-hot furnaee is like.” 

Baron Tolnay raised his eyebrows and stroked his mustache. 

“ Really?” he said, with polite concern. “Perhaps your journey 
has knoeked you up?” 

“lam not in the least knocked up, thank you.” 

“I beg your pardon; y<xi seemed to imply it. No doubt you arc 
tired.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


125 


“ I am not in the least tired.” 

“Tired travellers seldom enjoy themselves in a ball-room,” went 
on the haron, unheeding. He threw a glance which just passed over 
the dusty travelling-suit, and then returned to the contemplation of 
the dancers. A hint that he would be better out of a ball-room was 
the very thing to make Vincenz stay there. 

^ “You must find it dull work looking on,” added Tolnay, flapping 
his handkerchief slowly up and down. “Perhaps you would find 
more amusement in the card-room ; I shall be happy to show you 
the way. There are some old gentlemen playing whist there. I be- 
lieve they want a fourth player.” 

“Thank you, I don’t play whist,” said Vincenz, feeling hotter and 
hotter every moment. “ And I am not an old gentlemen,” he added 
to himself, with indignation. 

“Ah, you don’t play whist, and you don’t dance,” observed Baron 
Tolnay, with a glance which seemed to say — Then what do you do? 
“But I suppose you have danced in your day. Dr. Komers? Am I 
right? Every one dances when they are very young and foolish.” 

There was not a single word in any of Baron Tolnay’s remarks at 
which a rational man could have taken offence, nor anything which, 
taken separately, had any value in itself. Yet upon Vincenz each 
acted like a pin-prick, and all the pin-pricks together exasperated 
him beyond the bounds of endurance. He saw that figure in pink 
coming back towards her place, and his heart began to beat with 
violence, as an idea, born of desperation, took sudden shape in his 
head. 

“Did you give up dancing long ago?” Baron Tolnay was inquir- 
ing with civil indifference. 

Vincenz felt the blood rushing to his face and tingling in his ears; 
and in the same moment, to his own great surprise, he heard his 
own voice saying, suddenly, “I have not given up dancing at all;” 
and then he perceived that he had risen to his feet and was asking 
Gretchen to waltz with him. 

With a look of surprise she accepted him; and Vincenz, putting 
his arm round her waist, as he had seen other men do, began to 
tremble with a sort of tumultuous exultation at the thought that he 
had a right to do it as well as the others. 

Now for a bold plunge into that whirlpool of dancers! He felt 
several pairs of eyes fixed upon him ; but he was not afraid of any- 
thing at that moment, for a little hand rested on his shoulder. He 
forgot that he was in the dusty travelling-coat; he forgot that he 
could not see six yards distinctly in front of him; he forgot every- 
thing except that he was holding her hand, and that he must vindi- 
cate his youth. 

He made the plunge; they were carried away in the stream; other 
dancers made way for them precipitately, for Vincenz, resolved not 
to be timid like some chicken-hearted youths he had noticed, plung- 
ed onward, dancing more wildly than the wildest dancer in the room. 
It was not so very difficult after all, he thought, having got half-way 
across the floor. He had no notion of the strange and eccentric pict- 


126 


TUE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


urc he made as he whirled along, storm -wind fashion, with his 
stooping figure, and long, unpractised legs: self-consciousness was 
not one of his weak sides. Gretchen felt her breath swept away 
in the first second, and herself carried off the ground as if she had 
been a feather; her fingers were half crushed, she fancied her arm 
must be bruised. Vincenz got a train under his feet, and staggered 
for a moment; but he recovered his balance, and Gretchen was 
aware of being borne down towards the lower end of the room. 
She could see the lamps outside through the glass doors, which 
stood half closed. Only a few yards more, thought Vincenz, and 
the triumph would be complete ; but the unaccustomed motion was 
making his head swim round, till the revolving couples became 
vague colored blotches. In an unlucky moment he bethought him- 
self of the skilful turns to the left with which Baron Tolnay had 
diversified his dancing ; this would be the occasion for such a turn. 
He changed his direction so unexpectedly, that he caused two other 
couples to stumble with violence ; he changed it again, seeing noth- 
ing but a mass of lights and colors before his eyes, and feeling 
Gretchen cling more desperately to his shoulder. There was a 
check, a crash, some heads turned towards them, and at the same 
instant Vincenz, in a sudden rush of cool air, found himself stand- 
ing under the arcades outside, with a heap of broken glass at his 
feet, and Gretchen leaning breathless against a pillar beside him. 

What have I done?” he gasped, thunderstruck. 

“Only danced through a glass door,” she answered, still breath- 
less. 

“ I hope you don’t mind it much,” said Vincenz, rather ruefully. 

‘ ‘ I really am very sorry. ” She began to laugh, looking down at her 
arm. 

“I hardly expeeted to get through alive; but I have come off 
cheap, you see — only a little scratch.” 

He felt that he could breathe again. The sudden transformation 
scene had been rather bewildering at the moment ; but having realized 
the state of the case, his spirits began to rise. He felt on the whole 
that it was an exhilarating thing to have danced through a glass 
door; not for the last twenty years had he done anything so inspir- 
iting. No one could say that he had not vindicated his youth. He 
was convinced that none of the old gentlemen who were playing 
whist in the card-room could have accomplished this feat. It made 
him feel ever so much younger than he had felt five minutes ago. 
He cheerfully proposed that they should dance back again. 

“No, thank you,” said Gretchen, retreating a step. “ Perhaps we 
had better take a turn before going in again ; it would be as wise to 
wait until the sensation has subsided a little. We might be mobbed, 
you know.” 

“Do you think anybody noticed it?” he asked, in perfect good 
faith. 

“The music was very loud, I think,” said Gretchen, evasively. 

She turned to walk down the arcade, and he walked beside her. 
The place was quite deserted now, except for a drowsy man who 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


127 


came slowly along with his ladder, putting out, one by one, the 
lamps which burned under each arch. The waltz music still played 
on inside, and on the spot where they had first stood the broken 
glass lay scattered, and each glass splinter shone as in turn it caught 
the lamplight. They walked half - way up the arcades in silence, 
their steps echoing from end to end; then Gretchen stood still un- 
der an arch, and leaned against the stone pillar, still a little short of 
breath, while the lamplight streamed down full upon her. 

It was not one of the rare moonlight hours which visit the Djernis 
valley. Straight opposite, the mass of mountain was black and un- 
broken ; the sound of water breaking over marble and granite rocks 
made the night feel deliciously cool after the heat of the last hour. 
Gretchen drew a long breath, her lips were parted, and the pearls on 
her throat heaved gently with each breath. 

Vincenz had gone through much experience lately. Forty-eight 
hours ago he had been a dry lawyer, immersed in parchment docu- 
ments ; now he found himself standing in the stillness of a summer 
night, having just danced through the gla«s door of a ball-room; and 
he was alone with the woman he loved. On one side the floating 
music, on the other the rush of the water; nothing to disturb the 
solitude except the sleepy man with the ladder, who had been dark- 
ening the arcades by degrees, and now put out the light above their 
heads, leaving them in a sort of semi-darkness. The garden, which 
sloped down from their feet, was deserted — all but one figure, wdiich 
came along slowly by a winding path, drawing nearer and nearer, 
unnoticed. 

What w'onder if, in the silence, Vincenz felt a thrill of wild hope 
shoot through his heart? He knew now what he had come here 
to do. Why should he not be listened to this time? After what 
he had seen in the ball-room, he felt he would be a fool to give more 
time to his rival; for Baron Tolnay was his rival — already he ac- 
knowledged that. Why should he not have as good a chance as 
that polished man of fashion with his beautifully fitting coat and 
his beautifully pointed shoes? Vincenz, in his largeness of ideas, 
would never have stooped to believe that a woman could marry a 
man, or perhaps even love him, because of a beautiful coat or of 
pointed shoes. This was his time, he felt; no moment could be 
more favorable. If he now thought of the scattered glass at all, it 
was only as a pleasant recollection. He was impressed with a sort 
of conviction that his luck was on the turn; and that if his dancing 
had succeeded so well, everything else must be crowned with the 
same triumph. 

He did not pause to look for words, but he took hold of her hand 
and pleaded his cause in a hurried and impassioned voice, more^ elo- 
quently, more fervently than he had pleaded it on that Ash -Wed- 
nesday evening when the rain was falling in the street. 

It came upon Gretchen so suddenly, so utterly without warning, 
that she started back trembling, and stood shrinking against the 
broad stone pillar, staring back at him in speechless surprise. She 
could sec the light of love shining out of his deep-set eyes— for, as 


128 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


in all critical moments, Dr. Komers had taken off his spectacles ; but 
all he could see was her shrinking figure and her round arms, bare 
to the elbows, shining white as marble in the dim half-light. 

When her first surprise was past, she drew her hand away impetu- 
ously; but she had not yet said a word, when they both started at 
the sound of broken glass on the pavement. An approaching figure 
had stepped upon one of the scattered fragments. 

Vincenz relinquished her hand : he saw some one close, and there 
were more figures crowding out of the ball-room; but he whispered, 

“Gretchen, will you not give me your answer? Only one word, 
I implore!” 

She shook her head, and shrank farther into the black of the arch. 

“To-morrow, then,” said Vincenz. “I will ask for my answer 
to-morrow. Here they are all coming. ” 

Here they were all coming, indeed, and in the midst of them came 
a man with a telegram. He put it into Dr. Komers’s hand. 

‘ ‘ Anna is worse,” was Dr. Komers’s first thought, as he took it to 
the light, and, putting on his spectacles in haste, tore open the paper. 

Gretchen felt herself drawn out of the dark arch. Belita had put 
an arm round her friend’s waist. 

'' MiseiHcordia! my dear child, I could not imagine what had be- 
come of you. What are you doing here?” 

“I was so — so hot,” stammered Gretchen, feeling still rather con- 
fused. 

“H’m — you look hot;” and the contessa threw a curiously scruti- 
nizing glance towards Dr. Komers. She liked his looks less than 
ever this time. 

“Is it a business telegram?” inquired Ascelinde, burning with cu- 
riosity. 

Dr. Komers started, and crushed the paper into his pocket. 

“No, not exactly,” he said, slowly, looking at Madame Mohr 
doubtfully in the light of the lamp. “ It is a— startling piece of news.” 

Dr. Komers was going to have said a — sad piece of news ; but, 
considering all the circumstances of the case, he really could not find 
it in his conscience to use the adjective “sad.” The expression of 
his face was certainly that of a man who has received a shock of 
surprise. 

“Madame Mohr, you are going home now, I presume? You will 
allow me to accompany you as far as your door. This telegram 
affects you more than anybody else.” 

Tlie two walked on in advance. 

Belita had her arm still linked within Gretchen’s. “I shall see 
you to-morrow, Margherita— Good-night, Bamhina” 

Gretchen walked away beside her brother; the tall contessa and 
tlie little conte disappeared their own way; the last of the ball-goers 
dispersed. In the Cursahn, grown suddenly dark, there was the 
creak of some chairs pushed aside, then the twang of a fiddle drop- 
ped to the ground by a departing musician. All was silent after 
that; there would not be a step more in the arcades until daylight 
to-morrow. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


129 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

TRISTEZZA. 

“ E3 siud ja so mancherlei schlaue Betruger.”— Voss’s Odyssey. 

Early in the course of the following forenoon the contessa was 
to be seen making her way from one monster hotel to the other. 
The little conte, left at home, thought that his wife must have some 
very weighty object in view; for during the six weeks of his matri- 
monial experience he had never known her to have got farther than 
her dressing-gown at ten in the forenoon. 

Belita found the Mohrs’ apartments in a strange state of tumult. 
Something abnormal had occurred ; she saw that at a glance. The 
first visible symptoms were two youths in the passage, one holding a 
yard-measure, the other with a packet of stuff under his arm. A 
little of the stuff peeped out of the paper, and Belita saw that it was 
black. In the first room she entered, there was a big-nosed Israelite 
standing sentinel beside a pasteboard box, which overflowed with 
fringe as with a torrent of water; but the fringe, like the stuff out- 
side, was black. Belita opened the door of the sitting-room; and 
there, over all the seats, over the backs of chairs and trailing down 
to the ground, hung materials of all descriptions, heavy and light, 
thick and transparent, but all, like the packets outside, like the 
fringe in the box, black — a dead, unbroken black. Belita saw an- 
other larger, bigger-nosed Hebrew standing in the centre of the apart- 
ment and discoursing eloquently, as he waved his hand from object 
to object. She caught sight of Grctchcn, barricaded by piles of 
black stuff; her eyes fell on Madame Mohr, sitting pale and red-eyed 
on a chair ; and standing still at last in the door- way, she asked what 
had happened. 

The talkative Hebrew checked his eloquence, and retired discreetly 
to a window, while the contessa was being told what had happened. 

The greatest part of Ascelinde’s tears had been spent in the night- 
time ; but she had a few convulsive sobs remaining, wherewith to 
adorn more becomingly the melancholy news, which last night, on 
the homeward way. Dr. Komers had already broken to her. 

Alexius was dead. His precarious health, it appeared, had not 
been proof against the shock of joy which the sudden accession of 
fortune had brought him. The thought of becoming thus, by one 
stroke of luck, the possessor of Draskocs, had been too much for 
his delicate constitution. This was the version which Madame 
Mohr gave to Belita, and the version to which she clung until her 
last day ; but there was another version. 

When Dr. Komers, in writing to his sister, mentioned the event, 

9 


130 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


he expressed himself thus: “Drank himself to death immediately 
on getting my letter; passed twenty-four hours in his favorite pot- 
house, and was found at the end of that time a corpse, with fifteen 
empty bottles beside him. I had been told previously that the next 
attack of delirium tremens would be fatal.” 

It would be a wilful waste of ink and paper if I attempted to de- 
pict the struggle now taking place in Ascelinde’s breast. It had 
been her creed throughout life that Alexius was her idol. At the 
same time, it was a clear fact that the fall of this idol opened the di- 
rect road to Draskocs. The contention of feelings awakened by 
the ending of the case was weak compared to this new phase. If 
that had been a storm, this one was a hurricane. 

“What are you going to do?” asked the contessa at the end of 
ten agitated minutes. 

“ Go to Draskocs at once.” 

“What! to-day?” 

“To-morrow: our mourning must be made first; we shall have to 
employ every tailor in the place. I cannot live another week with- 
out seeing Draskocs. It will only be a run over to see if any new 
furniture will be required before we settle down there. I have not 
had time to put any questions to Dr. Komers about anything yet; 
and he has not been inside the house, it seems.” 

“How many of you are going?” 

“Margherita, myself, and Dr. Komers — he accompanies us.” 

“Ah! he accompanies you,” said Belita, reflectively. 

The shopman began to insinuate some remark about material and 
fashions; and Belita, looking round her with the eye of a diver who 
scans the 'waves, took off her gloves instinctively and prepared for a 
plunge into the sea of black. 

“ These blacks are all abominable,” she announced; “there is not 
one real black among them.” Everybody felt rather bewildered as 
Belita proceeded to prove to the indignant Hebrew that he did not 
know black when he saw it. These were all “cheerful” blacks, a 
great deal too frivolous in appearance. Did he mean to say that lie 
had none of the new noir de cercueil, or of the latest fashionable ma- 
terial called le desespoir? “My dear,” she said to Gretchen, who sat 
staring in amazement, having always hitherto believed that black 
was black and white was white, “ if you could have seen the lovely 
dress I was shown last month at Paris at Madame Ernestine’s, in the 
‘Deep Affliction Department.’ Just the thing to set off your hair 
and coloring. What a pity one cannot have presentiments!” The 
contessa heaved a passing sigh. “It was of a light stuff too, for 
summer wear — tristezza, and all trimmed with that new fringe cas- 
cxides des larmes. I liked it even better than the in memoriam toilet 
they made such a fuss about. Oh, I tell you it is a luxury to be- 
wail your relatives when you have Madame Ernestine to equip you. 
Ha!” cried the contessa at that moment, pouncing upon something 
which her practised eye had detected. 

“ What do you call this?” she asked in triumph, dragging some 
flimsy black stuff to the light. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


131 


Bartge” said the much-tried Hebrew. 

“Oh, man, man! not to know a thing when you have it! This is 
tristezza, I tell you! Not quite the real tristezza, but not far from it. 
This is the only thing that will do for Margherita. ” 

Gretchen resigned herself, so did Ascelinde; everybody had to 
surrender to the irrepressible contessa. There followed a quarter 
of an hour’s wrangling, which was happiness to Belita, perplexity 
to Ascelinde, and weariness to Gretchen. What with “cheerful” 
blacks and “sad” blacks, and there being too little of this and too 
much of that, Belita contrived, in a wonderfully short time, to drive 
everybody to their wits’ end. 

“And now,” she exclaimed, when at last alone with Gretchen— 
“now I have got you all to myself! Come out from behind that 
fortress, Margherita, and tell me all about it.” She cleared a chair 
for herself as she spoke, and sank into it. 

Gretchen was leaning with her elbow on the top of a black heap. 
She had been very silent during the discussion, but there was a flush 
of excitement on her cheek. 

“I know nothing more than mamma has told you,” she answered. 
“Poor Uncle Alexius — ” 

“ Whom you have never seen, and therefore cannot be sorry for, 
has died very opportunely, my dear. It is not that I mean — I am 
coming to that subject later; there is a more immediate point. Tell 
me the truth; has iie proposed to you or not?” 

Gretchen started. “What makes you think so?” 

“Exactly what made everybody else think so; he danced with 
you the whole evening.” 

“Are you talking of Baron Tolnay?” 

“Of whom are you talking?” 

“ Never mind.” 

“I will mind,” returned Belita, with a charmingly frank smile. 

The contessa knew perfectly well that there could be only one 
other man in the question besides Baron Tolnay. 

Last night, as she stepped out of the Oursalon, she had seen Dr. 
Komers standing beside Gretchen under the arch, and her sharp eyes 
had enabled her to notice a circumstance which, in the dark, had 
escaped the others; Dr. Komers had been holding Gretchen’s hand. 

Of course, Belita being what she was, could not be clever about 
anything but trimmings and millinery, or the cut of a cloak, or the 
fall of a train-skirt; but undeniably she possessed a certain feminine 
wit, sharp as — let us say— the scissors which shaped her fashionable 
garments, and bright as the needles which stitched them together. 
Her quickness of perception corresponded to the quickness of her 
ever-moving eyes, and enabled her to put twos and twos together 
with an almost electrical rapidity, and never allowed any chance 
detail, within the range of vision or hearing, to escape unnoticed. 
If the subject had a claim upon her interest, then Belita’s eyes, both 
mental and bodily, quickened in proportion; and everything con- 
cerning Gretchen had an interest for the contessa. The existence 
of this interest was not easy to explain ; Belita herself regarded it as 


132 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


a weakness. Constant companionship at school had first made her 
grow accustomed to Gretchen, as she expressed it; and intercourse 
had shown her in the German girl a docile disciple of her own doc- 
trines. Since then she had watched the progress of her pupil with 
mingled anxiety and pride, and to-day the anxiety was uppermost. 

Stepping out of the Cursalon last night, Belita had rapidly re- 
viewed the situation, and reflected that a man does not stand under 
deserted arcades, holding a girl’s hand, for nothing. A certain un- 
easiness had preyed on her mind ever since, and it was this uneasi- 
ness which had caused her to brave the hot sun this morning, and it 
was the same reason which moved her to say, a minute ago, “ Yes, I 
will mind.” 

Looking across the black pyramid, she now said, “You look fe- 
verish to-day, Margherita; your cheeks are burning.” 

“ It is the heat,” said Gretchen, shortly. 

Very likely it was the heat, or possibly also her broken sleep, for 
her night had been restless. She had dreamed of palaces and parks ; 
and coming drowsily to her senses this morning, her first thought 
had been, ‘ ‘ My fortune is made !” Her sensations were those of a 
person who has suddenly been lifted on to a high pedestal. The 
new elevation made her feel giddy. She was scarcely calm enough 
to enjoy it yet. 

“My dear child, you don’t suppose that I have come out this 
way, with nothing on me, merely to get evasive answers? Beating 
about the bush is just the thing I cannot stand. I like things to be 
to the point. If Baron Tolnay did not propose to you last night, it 
is because you did not give him an opportunity; and if he never 
proposes at all, it is because of your wicked imprudence.” 

“ Do you call it wicked imprudence to take a turn in the arcades?” 

“I call it wicked imprudence to stand under an arch alone with 
Dr. Komers. It is a mystery to me how you came to be there at all.” 

“We fell through a glass door.” 

“ No reason for not coming back through it again.” 

“But I had hurt my arm; it was scratched.” 

“I don’t pity you in the least; it serves you right for dancing 
with that enormous man in the despairingly ugly coat and the ante- 
diluvian boots. The story will be in everybody’s mouth to - day. 
Baron Tolnay says he will write to Pesth for unbreakable glass to 
put into the Cursalon windows. ” 

Certainly no one could accuse Belita of beating about the bush. 
Until this morning Gretchen had looked upon the smash of the 
glass door as an amusing incident; but contemplating it from Be- 
lita’s point of view, it became an ignominy. That allusion to the 
unbreakable glass was peculiarly mortifying. 

“ So you have no excuse to make,” said "Belita. “Do you know 
that you were playing a very dangerous game last night?” 

“I was not playing any game at all,” said Gretchen, rather 
sulkily. 

was not playing any game,” the contessa returned with em- 
phasis. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


133 


“ How do you know?” 

“ By tlie evidence of my own eyes and the calculation of my own 
brains. What Dr. Komers said to you last night was a serious 
thing.” 

Gretchen made no denial. 

“My dear child, you cannot deceive me. Perhaps you think 
that because I have the good-fortune to live in a country where 
marriages are arranged, tMt I do not know what a man looks like 
when he is asking a girl to be his wife? If I had not been inspired 
to interrupt your tete-a-tete last night, that man would in another 
moment have had the unparalleled presumption to ask you to 
marry him.” 

“You did not come in time,” said Gretchen, with a rather mali- 
cious delight. 

Belita was taken aback. She had attempted a random shot; she 
was horrified to find how truly she had aimed. 

“ Do you mean to say that he had done it already?” 

Gretchen nodded. 

“And, my dear child, if I may ask, how did he take his conge?'' 

“ He did not take it at all, because you were inspired to interrupt 
us just then. ” 

Misericor dial" The contessa rose from her seat in great per- 
turbation, and going to the glass, stared at the reflection of her hat, 
for the first time in her life without seeing it. 

“Then he can be expected to begin again?” 

“I suppose so.” 

“And the telegram came just at that moment,” observed the 
contessa. ‘ ‘ Y es— I see. ” 

“ What do you see?” 

“It is as clear as daylight,” said Belita, coming to a conclusion 
with her usual lightning-like rapidity. “It is very evident that 
Dr. Komers is a lawyer.” 

“ I don’t in the least understand you.” 

“ Don’t you? Don’t you see that I have wronged Dr. Komers?” 

“ In what way?” 

“By taking him for a sleepy lawyer, when in reality he has 
proved himself a remarkably wide-awake member of his profes- 
sion.” 

“I don’t understand,” said Gretchen again. 

“Not yet? Well, to be sure, you have hardly had time to realize 
that your fortune is made at last.” 

“Of course I have realized it; but what has that to do with Dr. 
Komers?” 

‘ ‘ Everything possible. He has seen the advantages of the case, 
and lie has tried to take his luck at the flood.” 

“That is not true, Belita!” cried the justice-loving Gretchen. 
“The telegram came afterwards. Dr. Komers knew nothing 
about it when he spoke to me. It is now that you wrong him.” 

“Now do not excite yourself; there is no reason whatever. I am 
only putting two and two together, and you can follow my calcu- 


134 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


lations if you pay attention. Dr. Komers arriving thus suddenly 
without any visible pretext, the telegram following on his heels, his 
audacious declaration — it is simple enough, in all faith, to see what 
it means. Your uncle died two days ago; it wmuld be strange if 
Dr. Komers, who is a lawyer, could not obtain the information a 
little earlier than other people, even though he found it better, for 
his own reasons, to keep the information to himself. ” 

“He could not have heard before; he had only just returned 
from Draskocs.” 

“Another proof for my case!” cried the contessa. “Draskocs 
was still fresh in his mind when he learned that it had become your 
mother’s. Nobody co^ld better estimate the value of a place like 
that than a man who is a lawyer. He has been able to calculate 
what your fortune would be, and he has tried to carry the situation 
with a bold coup-de-main. Dr. Komers is really a clever man, my 
dear. I am ready to stake my two best silk dresses that he has re- 
frained from dwelling upon the subject of Draskocs before you. 
What description did he give you of the place? None? I thought 
so,” as Gretchen shook her head; “ exactly what I expected. AVill 
you confess now that I am right?” 

“No!” burst out Gretchen, rising in her black fortress; “ you are 
wrong! Dr. Komers proposed to me three months ago, w^hile Dras- 
kocs was still in the clouds!” 

The contessa stood rooted to the spot, and for a full minute her 
tongue refused to move. 

“Three months ago!” she managed at last to stammer. “Good 
heavens, child! why did you never tell me this?” 

“ Are you my spiritual director?” 

“I almost think I am: you never made any secret about Baron 
Tolnay, nor Federbusch, nor any of the others. Perhaps — per- 
haps” — with a ray of light — “perhaps you were ashamed of this 
one?” 

Gretchen stood silent. She was looking baek at that Ash- 
Wednesday interview. There had certainly been a keen sense of 
shame in the discovery that the expected suitor was not one of the 
coveted partis, but only the family lawyer. And yet, after three 
months’ familiarity with the idea, her indignation of then appeared 
to her to have been almost greater than the occasion demanded. 

Meanwhile Belita had recovered her presence of mind, and rallied 
her scattered forces to a fresh attack. 

“I understand,” she exclaimed, for she chose to take Gretchen’s 
silence for assent, “ and I forgive you; the suitor certainly was not 
one to be proud of. But a clever man he must be all the same, 
though unpardonably audacious. And his ambition in wanting to 
marry you — ” 

“ Belita,” interrupted Gretchen rather hurriedly, “of course I put 
no wortlron that sort of thing; but still— still, I do not believe that 
ambition had anything to do with it. I really think he cares for 
me. ” 

“ There!” cried Belita, with a sort of triumph, “did I not tell you 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


135 


that you are ten times vainer than I am ? I blush for you, Mar- 
gherita; a girl of your acuteness of perception to persist in believing 
tiiat it is her charms that have fascinated that middle-aged man of 
the law, while it is as clear as daylight that his only motive is inter- 
est! Nor do I blame him either; for a man in his position to marry 
a girl in your position would always be a rising in life, even before 
your accession to fortune. And now that Draskocs is won, of course 
his ardor is redoubled. I will engage never to look at a French 
fashion-plate again if you can deny that his second declaration was 
a much more passionate affair than the first.” 

Of course it had been much more passionate, thought Gretchen, 
though she did not choose to admit it. Her clear head was not as 
clear as usual to-day; her ideas were entangled and her vanity 
alarmed. Was it indeed possible that Dr. Komers had wanted to 
marry her merely out of ambition? Well, and what of that? Why 
should she resent it? The point of view from which he regarded 
her would then be the same as that from which she herself regarded 
Istvan Tolnay. It stood to reason that he had as much right to his 
ambition as she had to hers. 

“And now, a last word of advice,” said the contessa, as she drew 
on her many-buttoned gloves. “ You will remember that only the 
other day I expressed a fear as to whether you might not carry flirta- 
tion too far; and though, of course, Baron Tolnay could not possi- 
bly be jealous of a man who wears a coat of that make, still I think 
you have been imprudent. If you reall}^ find any amusement in it, 
there is no reason why you should not flirt with Dr. Komers — nmd- 
erately, of course. I don’t see the pleasure of that sort of thing my- 
self ; but I believe many people do. The mistake was, ever letting 
him come to a distinct declaration. Now that it has happened, all 
you can do is to use him prudently: play cat and mouse with him, 
if you like; a soupgon of jealousy may help to bring on Baron Tol- 
nay.” 

“ I thought you said that nobody could be jealous of a man with 
a coat like that?” 

“Did I? I dare say. Let us not try to be logical, my dear; I can- 
not stand your logical deductions. What I advise — ” The contessa 
raised her hand and listened to a step in the next room. “That is 
Dr. Komers, my dear; he is coming for his answer. I shall leave 
you to demolish him; but I must have a word with him first. He 
shall see that he is not the only person with sharp eyes in his head.” 

Gretchen did not understand what Belita meant by her last hur- 
ried words ; and there was no time to question, for Dr. Komers was 
in the room. She gave him her hand without looking at him, and 
then sat silent, trying to collect her thoughts; while Belita, having 
first rescued the trutezza on which the short-sighted lawyer was about 
to sit down, entered into a rapid conversation with him. 

Gretchen’s thoughts were not easy to collect. During the present 
interval of respite she was, so to say, arming herself for battle. She 
began to go through again the addition of those various twos and 
twos which Belita had summed up for her; and in the new light 


136 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


thrown upon the subject, it looked almost as if the sum-total were, 
after all, correct. Nothing is so persuasive as an honest tone of con- 
viction ; and Belita’s words had been imbued with the honest un- 
wavering belief that her view was the only right one. And were 
not many of the things she had said the very echo of Gretchen’s own 
thoughts on Ash- Wednesday afternoon? Had she not herself been 
aghast at the lawyer’s presumption? Penetrated by the sense of her 
new importance, Gretchen was more than ever ready to agree that 
the position in which she stood was incalculably higher than that 
of a poor, portionless, drudging lawyer. And yet she would have 
liked — she would have liked very much to know whether Belita 
was really right. The question could not fail to interest her vanity ; 
for however little a woman may value a man’s love, it always re- 
mains a disagreeable surprise to discover that it is not herself but 
only her position or her fortune that he covets. 

“Ah, good-morning. Dr. Komers,” had been Belita’s first words. 

‘ ‘ I hope you have recovered from the shock of your accident yes- 
terday. You have come, no doubt, like me, to offer your congra — 
your condolences, I mean,” corrected Belita, as her eye fell on the 
tristezza, which covered the sofa in a heap. “ I dare not stay longer; 
I scarcely feel the right to take up more of Margherita’s time. She 
has important duties now: this change of position is so sudden she 
scarcely realizes it herself, poor child. But I am a woman of the 
world, and you are a lawyer; we must help her to understand the 
importance of her new place.” 

Vincenz, who had been favored with very few words last night, 
did not know what to make of this gracious volubility. 

“Good-bye, my little heiress,” said Belita, pressing Gretchen’s 
hand with warm significance. “She is turned into an heiress now, 
is she not. Dr. Komers? I suppose you will soon be having the 
pleasure of drawing up the marriage-settlements — we all know how 
heiresses are snapped up nowadays. I have been trying to preach 
prudence a little; I think you had better do the same” — and she 
kissed her friend affectionately on the forehead. 

‘ ‘ I am sure Dr. Komers agrees with me, my dear. There is so 
much interested motive in the world. Good-bye ” — she was out of 
the room, throwing one more glance of warning over her shoulder. 

Vincenz stood for a while, looking puzzled ; he was ruminating 
uneasily on the meaning of the contessa’s words. 

Gretchen furtively watched his expression. Her own face had 
changed ; the flush of excitement had died away, leaving her paler 
than usual. 

Meanwhile Belita, as she buttoned her gloves in the passage, was 
feeling well satisfied with herself. She took no pleasure whatever 
in being cruel ; but she saw no cruelty in what she had been doing. 
It was with perfect honesty that she believed in Dr. Komers’s in- 
terested motive; for she had the great advantage? or the great dis- 
advantage, of not believing in the existence of love. The burden 
from which her mind now felt lightened Avas a fear that Gretchen, 
by indulging in a little too much foolish flirtation with Dr. Komers, 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


137 


might frighten off the other valuable captive. This was the whole 
extent and limit of her apprehensions. 

Having buttoned her last button, she opened the door once more 
and stuck in her head. 

“One word more : you have not seen Baron Tolnay to-day. Mar- 
gherita?” 

“ Certainly not,” said Gretchen, much annoyed. 

“ He will be here soon, I fancy, to congra— to condole. Good- 
bye.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

MORE TRISTEZZA. 

“ Farewell 1 thou art too dear for my possessing, 

And like enough thou know’st thine estimate.” 

SllAKESPKARK. 

It was not until the contessa was half-way home that Dr. Komers 
spoke. 

He was not embarrassed, but he was somewhat perplexed. Per- 
haps also his hopes, which last night in the silence of the deserted 
arcades had appeared to him to be nearer fulfilment, faded back 
into their former incertitude when looked at by this broad light of 
day. Even the black color on all sides tended to depress him ; it 
threw in a gloomy background to the picture. And here, in the 
middle of the lugubrious piles and mournfully trailing folds, sat his 
lady-love in a listless attitude, looking pale by contrast to her dark 
surroundings. 

In that moment of passion last night, when he had lost guard 
over himself, and avowed his love in words which he had never 
learned (for assuredly he had not read them in his law-books, nor 
dug them out of his legal parchments), and which yet came so easi- 
ly to his lips, he had felt it not impossible that that dimly seen, 
pink-robed figure should answer him with “Yes.” But now she 
was pale, she was in black, the brilliancy was gone : what else could 
the black-robed figure say but “No?” 

Last night had been one brief moment of happy dreaming; this 
was the reality of life again. Who knows ? If the dream had 
lasted but a little while longer — 

But those were foolish thoughts, useless speculations. Vincenz, 
passing his hand over his forehead, roused himself with an effort. 

“Perhaps I ought not to have disturbed you so soon after the 
melancholy news which arrived last night,” began Vincenz; “but 
you will understand my anxiety, and excuse me.” 

She made a sign as if to wave off the apology, but she remained 
silent, and Vincenz went on speaking. That burst of eloquence 
which had come to him unawares last night did not return to his 
aid now. He spoke soberly, constrainedly almost; the invigorating 
sensation of youth had quite departed. 


138 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ It is no use to tell you again what are my feelings towards you; 
you are aware of them already, and I do not want to weary you. 
Do not suppose me vain enough to imagine that I have won your 
love yet ; but I still continue to hope now, as I hoped then, that I 
may win it in time. Can you encourage me to hope? Is it quite 
impossible that in time perhaps you may get to care for me?” 

“Quite impossible,” said Gretclien, very hurriedljr. 

“I beg you to reflect. I can wait for your decision, and I can 
wait for your love. I will wait, if you only give me hope.” He 
looked at her wistfully, but she did not meet his eyes. It was 
harder, she felt, to refuse a man the second than it had been the 
first time. 

“ It is no use your waiting. Dr. Komers.” 

“You are deciding too hurriedly,” he said. “Is my love to go 
all for nothing?” 

His love? Gretchen’s curiosity as to the existence of that love 
returned in double force. She wislied more than ever that she could 
feel quite convinced by Belita’s theory, for that would at once have 
disposed of this troublesome feeling of pity, of which she was be- 
coming faintly aware. But it was difficult to reconcile that theory 
with his tone and his look. She would have liked to gain some 
proof of the truth, whichever way it lay. 

“Why will you ask me again. Dr. Komers, when I have given 
you one answer already?” 

This was the exact juncture of the interview which an experi- 
enced coquette would have made use of for playing a game of cat 
and mouse, as Belita had suggested. Even Gretchen, little schooled 
as she was, understood that if she wished to prolong the torture of 
her suitor, she had only to veil her answers in a gentle cloud of 
vagueness, and to dole out hope and despair in equal portions. 
Perhaps her preoccupation to-day was the cause of her missing this 
opportunity, or perhaps she felt instinctively that this particular 
sort of mouse might not understand the fun of being played with, 
and that so large a mouse might, when under provocation, turn 
upon the cat. Whatever the reason was, Gretchen, with a shake of 
her head, added decisively, “I can never give you another answer 
than the first one. Pray do not think of it any more.” 

“I have thought of nothing else,” broke out Vincenz — “of noth- 
ing else for the last three months; my wishes are as hot to-day as 
they were on Ash -Wednesday.” 

“ Hotter, it seems to me,” said Gretclien, bitterly. 

“ Ten thousand times hotter,” echoed Vincenz, scarcely noticing 
the strangeness of the tone and words. “You surely do not think 
that any— any altered circumstances could have had effect upon me?” 

“ I hope not. Dr. Komers,” she answered, gravely, and this time 
the emphasis of the phrase made him wonder for a moment. 

“Do you remember,” he said, speaking almost timidly for such a 
giant as he was, “you said then that you would never marry a poor 
man? but I thought — ” 

“That I might have changed my mind now, because we have 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


139 


grown rich.” And as she spoke, again there rushed upon her the 
desire to obtain, to call forth, to provoke, if necessary, the answer 
which her curiosity demanded. 

“Rich?” Vincenz repeated the word with a peculiar accent, and 
then paused as if checking himself on the brink of some further 
speech. In a moment he seemed to have recovered all his clearness. 

“No,” he answered, very quietly, “it was not of the change I 
was thinking, not of Draskocs. I never thought that Draskocs had 
influenced you — ” 

“ Though it may have influenced others,” said Gretehen, follow- 
ing a sudden impulse. In themselves the words might have been 
mistaken; but the quiver of her scornful lip, the flash of her proud 
eyes, made their meaning clear, terribly clear to Vincenz, whose 
sensitive pride, put on the guard by Belita’s chatter, pierced her 
thought on the instant. His gaze met hers : he understood, and Gret- 
chen saw that he understood. 

“Do you mean to say,” asked the lawyer, slowly, having sat for 
a moment rigid under the effect of this revelation — “can you really 
believe that it is because of Draskocs that I have professed to love 
you? Because of Draskocs?” 

“It would not be so very unnatural to suppose,” stammered Gret- 
chen, “with some men;” and she got no farther than this, but sat 
silent. 

Dr. Komers made a quick movement as if he were going to speak, 
but checked himself as suddenly as before, and for a full minute 
also sat silent. 

During that minute she began to tremble. This pause was fear- 
ful — Dr. Komers, in his rigid attitude, with his spectacles in his 
hand, and a dark flush spreading slowly over his face, struck her 
with a sudden awe. She fancied he was crouching for a spring 
like a lion, which, in her folly, she had provoked. 

The spring came, suddenly, at the end of that minute ; and at the 
sound of his voice, so altered, so passionate that she scarcely recog- 
nized it as his, Gretehen shrank back, as though to intrench herself 
behind the black fortress. 

“With some men, you say? Ay, I believe that there are such 
men, but I am not one of them. Oh, you misunderstand, you mis- 
understand me most cruelly! You insult my honor and you insult 
my love to you by hinting at such things. With some men! I dare 
say! V'ou are free to refuse my love if you will not have it, but 
you are not Hee to insult it;” he brought dowm his clinched hand on 
the table beside him, so that it shook beneath his fist. 

Gretehen sat quite still, but her breath came quick, and her eyes 
dilated. She had never seen Dr. Komers, the gentle, the courteous 
Dr. Komers, in this mood. She had never even suspected him of 
such passion. There w^as a fire in his eyes which seemed to scorch 
her, and yet she could not look away. 

“ I have loved you as few men love a w'oman,” said the law^yer, 
still speaking in that rapid, deeply moved tone, and with the flush 
still darkening his pale face. “ I have offered you my love twice. 


140 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


and you have refused it twice; you have rejected it, and you havh 
doubted it. I shall never offer it again, remember that — never! I 
shall not beg for your love, like a beggar for a crust. If you will 
not give it me freely, I shall live without it.” He broke off with 
the same abruptness which marked his first angry words, and re- 
mained sitting as he was, staring in deep abstraction at the ground. 

Still Gretchen’s self-possession failed her; still she sat in spell- 
bound amazement. Was this the same man who a little while ago 
had pleaded so wistfully for her love? 

It was no longer than half a minute that Yincenz had sat thus 
silent, when, starting out of his passing abstraction, he rose and half 
turned to the door; then stopping he wheeled right round, and com- 
ing two steps straight towards Gretchen, he spoke in an altered 
voice, while the flush slowly faded from his face, 

“ I beg your pardon most humbly, Fraulein Mohr. I forget some- 
times that I am no longer a young man. I have no right to lose my 
self-control in this way. Will you excuse my violence? I hope I 
have not frightened you. What I meant to say is, that as you have 
twice given me so decisive an answer, I shall never trouble you on 
this subject again.” 

He looked most sincerely ashamed of himself ; in his heart he felt 
as deeply humiliated as if he had used his brute strength against a 
woman. There was something tragi - comical in the alarm with 
which he gazed at the fragile girl before him, as though half expect- 
ing to sec her shattered before his eyes like a figure of brittle porce- 
lain. 

Never again ! He was gone— penitent for his outburst, but immov- 
able in his decision. 

When Gretchen met the lawyer after this, immediately before 
their departure, he looked a little pale, but otherwise unchanged, 
except that to the few hurried questions concerning Draskocs that 
Ascelinde found time to put to him, he gave short and rather un- 
gracious answers. “You will see everything for yourself,” he said, 
curtly, as he noted some necessary arrangements in his battered 
pocket-book. 

Thanks to the united efforts of all the tailors in the place, the tris- 
tezza had been got into shape for the mourners. The cascades des 
larmes, so warmly recommended b^ Belita, were not to be procured, 
but an inferior sort of ‘ ‘ tears ” glittered along the outline of Asce- 
linde’s tunic. As she walked down the staircase in her trailing black 
garments, where here and there a basting-thread still lingered, Ma- 
dame Mohr felt that the most solemn epoch of her life w^as about 
to commence. For it w\as to take possession of the home of her 
ancestors, from which cruel injustice had excluded her since her 
most tender childhood, that she was setting off in this state of ghast- 
ly splendor. 

The party of mourners had not driven more than a hundred yards 
down the valley when another set of bells jingled round the corner, 
and one travelling - carriage, followed by a second, met them, and 
passed on at a sharp pace towards the Hercules Baths. In the first 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


141 


carriage there were several people— an old gentleman, a young man, 
two boys. In the second there were two ladies and a child. 

For one minute Gretchen found herself close to the younger of 
the two. She was leaning back, muffled in a colored burnoose ; but 
her eyes were raised, and Gretchen saw a face which, in the dusk at 
least, looked beautiful. The vision swept past, vanishing into a 
cloud of dust. 

The driver turned on his seat, and with an accent of pride, as if 
he were showing off a sight, he announced: “X*? mare Principe 
(the great Princes) Recsulescu!” 

“ And the lady in the second carriage, who is she?” inquired Gret- 
chen. But the driver had cracked his whip, and the question was 
lost in the jingle of the bells. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE HOME OF HER ANCESTORS. 

“All creeping plants, a wall of green 
Close matted, bur, and brake, and brier, 

And glimpsing over these, just seen 

High up the topmost palace spire.” — Tknnybon. 

It was a country of roses down there — a rose-world. Enchanting 
designation! Pregnant with sweetest perfume, redolent of softest 
poetry. What life can be more fraught with dreamy delight, more 
removed from the dry prose of common existence, than that of a 
rose, living among other roses, in the midst of a rose country? What 
young disciple of the Muse would not sing to himself in an ecstatic 
moment that he’d “ be a rosebud, born in a bower,” and recognize the 
advantage of dying when the summer is o’er? The duties of a rose 
are light duties as a rule. To be fanned by the breeze in the day- 
light hours, and to listen to the song of the nightingale in the dark; 
to hang on a well-trimmed bush, the pride of a Northern garden; to 
be worshipped by well-paid gardeners in palaces of crystal, built up 
for them alone ; to be stared at as the triumph of a metropolitan 
flower-show ; perhaps to climb up a cottage-door and peep in at a 
scene of domestic felicity within; or, best of all, to crown a beauty’s 
head, or scatter its dying petals on her breast. 

Up there in the North the roses are the masters, but here in the 
South they are the slaves; and, like all slaves, whether human, ani- 
mal, vegetable, or mineral, the roses have a hard time of it here. No 
young poet, be he ever so young and ever so enthusiastic, would 
care to be boiled up with sugar and made into jam, nor yet to be 
kneaded into the sickly dulcezza with which the Turkish ladies de- 
light in spoiling their teeth and ruining their digestion ; nor even 
would he pine after the happiness of being distilled into scent, or 
left to dry in the sun, until he had attained the necessary degree of 
hardness and the coal-black hue which is requisite for the composi- 


142 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


tion of that perfumed mass, out of which the Southerners are fond 
of carving such fragrant, but, alas! such hideous ornaments. 

These slaves, with their pink faces and their hanging heads, are 
not cared for because of their beauty — nobody takes the trouble to 
think of whether they are beautiful or not : their master looks at 
them with a critical eye, but it is not to mark their tenderness of 
hue or grace of shape — it is to calculate how much profit they can 
be made to yield ; for here these queens of the flower- world have 
sunk to the prosaic position of potatoes or beet-root. The rose-har- 
vest is talked of here as elsewhere the wheat-harvest ; and to hun- 
dreds of families the success or the failure of the flowers means 
riches or poverty. They are cut, they are stacked, they are carried 
away, just as we cut, stack, and carry away our hay and our straw, 
our barley and our oats. 

If now and then it happens that these pink-faced slaves lose their 
master, or that their master slackens his hold upon them, then the 
slaves, breaking out of all bounds, run wild and smother the earth, 
growing like weeds out of its fertile surface. Then, missing the 
check of authority, they grow wanton, embracing and strangling 
each other at will. Here and there, where some such colony has 
escaped from mastership, the bushes bud and fade again without 
making any one the richer — as for instance on that lonely spot, 
where the roses year after year for a long time past have dropped 
their petals unheeded upon each other, having no other duty to ful- 
fil than to put out their flowers as every June comes round, and 
weave a fantastic garland around an old man’s grave. 

But those escaped slaves are few. These acres of roses around 
are all under the yoke ; and they are having their hardest time now, 
for it is late in the rose season, and the cutters are at work. They 
are to be seen in the fields using their knives mercilessly, and they 
are to be met on the road, coming along in the dust, bending under 
the load of flowers which heap the basket-casks on their backs, and 
staring sideways and open-mouthed at the unusual sight of a travel- 
ling-carnage jogging slowly along. There is such a profusion of 
roses this year that no one cares if the heap shakes with each step, 
now and then dropping a rose-liead in the dust, from where the chil- 
dren pick them up and play with them gleefully. 

A rose burden is not necessarily a light burden, thinks Gretchen, 
as she watches the toil-worn faces of the laden peasant-women ; and 
though it may perhaps be pleasanter to prick one’s fingers with rose- 
thorns than with needles, that does not make the scratches in their 
hands less unsightly. 

It is a hot day, but a day without sunshine. The hard glare of 
light, the dazzling brightness of blue sky, which Gretchen has been 
used to for many days past, is gone to-day. There is an even gray- 
ness over the low-hanging sky, stretching. away, unbroken and un- 
shaded, until over there in the far west, where thunder brood^n the 
lead-blue, metal-hued clouds, and grumbles out a faint but sullen 
warning, with long intervals of dead silence between. There is no 
breeze to carry about the scent of roses on the air : it hangs heavily 


THE 'WATERS OF HERCULES. 


143 


over the fields, intense but imrefreshing, weij^hing on the senses and 
mingling with the breath of every evil-smelling thing, which disfig- 
ures the street of each squalid village tlie travellers have passed. It 
is strange to find one’s self thus freed again from the imprisonment 
of the Djernis valley. The wide sky looks foreign to Gretchen, and 
the flat country has an uncongenial vacancy after those rocks and 
forests they have left behind them. They had passed by many rows 
of hovels, called villages ; and they had passed one or two solitary 
buildings, standing in the middle of flat fields, and scarcely shaded 
by acacia-trees, and these were called country-houses. They were 
all long and low, and each had an appanage of small out-buildings ; 
some of them were better and some of them worse. Some of them 
bore the stamp of poverty upon their doors and windows and the 
rude planking which fenced them in ; others betrayed signs of rude 
opulence in their open granaries overflowing with Indian corn. 

“Wait till you see Draskocs !” said Ascelinde, with suppressed 
triumph in her tone, each time that they passed one of these soli- 
tary white houses. Not one of them even distantly approached the 
picture in Ascelinde’s mind : they all were pale and shadowy beside 
the vision which, with every moment and with every yard of the 
road traversed, was growing more distinct in her memory. The 
number of horses capable of being stabled at Draskocs had under- 
gone a considerable increase since they started on their journey; 
every hour added a step to the flight which led up to the entrance 
door, the avenue grew more stately, the trees loftier with each min- 
ute, until it really appeared that if the journey were prolonged for 
another half day, the house of Ascelinde’s ancestors would threaten 
to tower into the sky, and strike the beholders blind with the excess 
of its glory. 

It was two in the afternoon when they drove past the dark wood- 
en church with its weed-grown burying-ground, and then up the 
dirty street of Iladhaza, which Vincenz knew from his former visit. 
They stopped in front of the wretched little inn to water the panting 
horses : the poor beasts’ ragged flanks were heaving, though they had 
jogged so slowly, for the air was heavy as lead and hot as a furnace blast. 

“How slow they are in attending, ” said Ascelinde, impatiently, 
as a man leisurely filled a wooden pail with the dull w^ater of the 
well. “ Tell them that we are going to Draskocs, Dr. Komers, and 
that I am mistress of the place. ” 

Dr. Komers appeared not to have heard; at least he certainly did 
not give the information indicated ; seeing which, Ascelinde gave 
the information herself, but was only met by a stupid stare. 

“ What is that man saying. Dr. Komers — I can’t hear him?” 

“ He is saying that there will be a storm before evening, and that 
we had better stay here.” 

“How ridiculous! We shall sleep at Draskocs, of course; tell the 
coachman to drive on.” 

The^Jandlord turned back to his inn, scratching his head, and 
Vincenz took his place on the box again beside the driver. The 
driver looked at the sky and shrugged his shoulders. 


144 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“Drive on,” said Vincenz, shortly; and he folded his arms and 
sat staring straight in front of him, with a face as expressionless 
and as hard-set as a face of wood. He had worn this look through- 
out all the journey; and throughout all the journey, too, his lips had 
remained so obstinately locked that it was almost with an elTort 
that he unclosed them when some unavoidable word had to be pro- 
nounced. 

When the last house of Iladhaza was left behind, the road, thick 
with white dust and seamed with deep cart-ruts, ran along between 
level fields and stretches of waste land. It was the last stage of 
their journey, and Ascelinde, as she scanned the wide horizon, felt 
the solemnity of the impending moment settling down upon her 
soul. 

“Are we near yet?” she asked at short intervals ; and after a 
weary hour at last came the answer — “ We are not far now.” 

The sky during this hour had grown stealthily darker, and the 
clouds had gathered into a huddled mass. There was no one in the 
fields, and there was no one along the length of the deserted road. 

But Ascelinde could not see the road, however much she might 
crane her neck. With trembling fingers she smoothed her crape 
bonnet-strings, and shook out the folds of her mournful tunic, which 
wept its inferior quality of tears around her ample person. She be- 
gan to rehearse some speeches suitable for the occasion — a noble and 
dignified address wherewith to answer the welcome she expected. 
Some very unpronounced visions of enthusiastic tenantry were hov- 
ering through her brain. Mr. Howard had only the other day given 
her an account of a grand reception of the sort, when the farmers 
had taken out the horses and dragged their landlord to his door. 
The excitement was almost too great to be borne, and Ascelinde in 
this supreme moment, the culminating point as it were of her life, 
put out her hand mechanically, and pressed her daughter’s fingers 
with convulsive force. 

Some acacia-trees were passed — five on one side, and six on the 
other ; the carriage jolted heavily into a rut and heavily out of it 
again. Ascelinde saw the driver pointing his wiiip, as if at some- 
thing ahead of them. That must be Draskocs — that must be It! 
Ascelinde could stand this no longer; she wrenched her hand away 
from her daughter, and she put it over her face. 

She had scarcely done so when the carriage stood still. She looked 
up with a start. Dr. Komers was slowly descending from his seat, 
and Gretchen, leaning over the side, was staring eagerly on in front. 

Oh, irony of Fate! Had a horse come down, or had a wheel given 
way just as they were so near reaching the wished-for goal? Were 
they to be kept here in the middle of this cart-track when they had 
all but arrived at Draskocs? Must they be detained here, at its very 
gates? 

Ascelinde stood up in the carriage in an agony of impatience. 
There was a long, low, tumble-down house — a lower edition of the 
sort they had jiassed at intervals in the forenoon— staring at them 
over a wall of rotten planks. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


145 


“ Dr. Komers, what lias happened?” cried Asceliude, trembling 
with agitation. “ Why are we being stopped here? Are we going 
to be robbed? or are the horses lame?” 

Dr. Komers having carefully descended to the ground, adjusted 
his spectacles and said, in a rather diffident tone, 

“Nothing has happened.” 

“ Can’t you take the stones out of the horses’ feet, or whatever it 
is?” exhorted the countess. “ Be quick, I implore you!” 

“ There are no stones in the horses’ feet, Madame Mohr.” 

“Then the man is drunk, I am certain of it; you must take the 
reins. ” 

By this time Vincenz was rubbing his spectacles hard. “ I assure 
you the man is perfectly sober,” he said, hesitating. 

“ Then what have we stopped here for?” demanded the big wom- 
an, with a tragedy stare, as she stood to her full height in the car- 
riage. 

The driver was quietly filling his pipe, with the reins flung over 
his arm, while the horses stood with lowered heads and a dejected 
droop of the shoulders. 

Gretchen sat still, leaning over the side, looking with a sort of 
fascination at the crumbling house which stood behind the rotten 
planks. The planks seemed to run all round in a square, and they 
covered half the height of the house, so that only the roof and a 
narrow strip of the w\all remained visible. Through a chink be- 
tween two boards a pink rose had pushed its inquisitive head, and 
nodded them a hospitable welcome. To the right and to the left, 
to the back and to the front, the waste land stretched ; the cart- 
track ran on, its dust lying undisturbed by any passer-by. There 
was no human being in si^ht, and no other house within eye-range, 
except where, in the far distance, a group of acacias seemed to de- 
note a repetition of the place before which they found themselves. 

“Madame Mohr,” said Vincenz, standing with his hand on the 
carriage-door, ‘ ‘ I beg you to compose yourself. Be so kind as to 
look at those trees along the road; do they not recall anything to 
your memory?” 

His grave tone arrested the excited words on her lips. She turned 
and stared back at the eleven acacia-trees which they had passed, 
six on one side, five on the other. 

“There were acacia-trees at Draskocs,” she said, looking at them 
blankly; “but there were a great many more of them, and much 
higher — a whole avenue.” 

“And that pond?” said Vincenz, pointing to an oblong piece of 
water which lay in a hollow outside the wall of planks, its stagnant 
surface coated thickly with green duck-weed, a splendid feast for a 
waddling flock, but spreading its luscious verdure in superfluous 
abundance before the solitary inhabitant of the pond. Where the 
supply so far exceeds the demand, even such delicacies as duck-weed 
are lowered in the estimation of a duck. 

“That pond,” repeated Ascelinde, obeying Dr. Komers without 
knowing why she did it— “that pond? There was a lake at Dras- 

10 


146 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


kocs— but the shape was rather like this pond, and there used to be 
swans upon it— large white swans,” she added, looking at the small 
and very dingy duck that had paddled back to the near side again, 
and now stopped to gobble another mouthful of the floating green 
water-weed. 

“ And now,” said Dr. Komers, scanning Madame Mohr’s face with 
some agitation on his own — “and now, will you look at the house a 
little more carefully; does it remind you of nothing?” 

Ascelinde, with a sort of notion that Dr. Komers was mad and 
must be humored, but with, nevertheless, a faint uneasiness at the 
bottom of her heart, turned away from the duck-pond and stared at 
the tumble- down house. 

There was a pause of nearly a minute while Ascelinde gazed at 
the house, while Gretchen looked curiously at the lawyer’s face, 
while the coachman stuffed his pipe with his thumb, and while the 
dingy duck took two journeys backward and forward without any 
need of hurry. Then Ascelinde looked at Vincenz, and he saw that 
the uneasiness had risen up steadily, and was now shining out of 
her eyes. 

“I don’t understand you,” she faltered; “this does — does — not 
remind me of — of Draskocs.” 

“Look again,” he said. 

She did look again, blankly at first; but the uneasiness in her eyes 
turned gradually into real terror. Long, long forgotten memories 
had begun to whisper, and were whispering louder every minute. 
That house was not strange to her; it had some place far back in 
her mind. She felt herself growing cold, but she was a strong wom- 
an — she would not give in to this absurdity. 

“Dr. Komers, why are you keeping us here?” she asked, with an 
anger which was not quite real. “ Why don’t you tell the man to 
drive on to Draskocs?” 

“ We are at Draskocs already!” 

Ascelinde turned pale, but she smiled a sickly smile. This was 
evidently a horrible dream, and it could only need a resolute effort 
to awake out of it; she had to clear her throat three times before 
she could speak distinctly. 

“Yes, Draskocs,” she said, looking at the lawyer rather wildly — 
how strange the familiar word sounded at this moment 1 “1 sup- 

pose this is the lodge— or— or the gardener’s house— but where is 
the house itself?” 

“There is no other house; this is the house itself.” 

“ This is Draskocs?” pointing with a desperate gesture across the 
plank wall. Oh, if only she could have clung to the belief that Dr. 
Komers was deceiving her! But, alas! what was this new light 
streaming in upon her reluctant eyes? As she put the question, she 
looked around once more, and from everywhere around her the 
ghosts of far-away memories seemed to start up and stare her in the 
face. Those acacia-trees — they bore a horrible resemblance to the 
lofty avenue she remembered; that pond— it was growing every mo- 
ment more distinctly like the lake of other days; that plank cnclos- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


147 


lire carried back her thoughts with most provoking persistency to the 
park-wall she had vaunted : even the tumble-down house had a ghost- 
ly, grinning likeness to the home of her earliest childhood. It was 
all a parody, a badly-drawn caricature ; but the likeness which it bore 
to her memories was coming out now with rapid strokes. 

“ Yes, this is Draskocs.” Dr. Komers said it with an effort; and 
having pronounced the fatal words, he turned without waiting to 
see the effect, and walked across the road, two or three steps away 
from the carriage. 

This was the supreme moment then, the most dreadful half min- 
ute which Ascelinde had ever lived through; this was the moment 
to which Vincenz, in the first heat of his wounded pride, had looked 
forward as the one of revenge. But now that it was come, the re- 
venge was too absolute to be sweet. It was more than revenge, it 
was cruelty, to have kept this grim and heartless silence, to have let 
that unfortunate woman reach this very spot still wrapped in her 
insane illusions. Those two women in the carriage had grievously 
hurt his pride, and they were at his mercy; but it was a question 
whether at this moment Ascelinde or Vincenz suffered more acutely. 
His nature revolted against the unfair advantage he had taken. As 
he stood staring at the flat country, with his back generously turned 
to the carriage, while he printed off every cloud upon his memory 
with the agonized concentration of the moment, he felt that he would 
give everything he possessed, his sister Anna perhaps excepted, if, 
by a stroke of magic, the real Draskocs could have been transformed 
into something ten times more splendid than the imaginary Dras- 
kocs had ever been. 

For a few seconds Dr. Komers heard nothing behind him except 
the jingle of a carriage-bell and the puffing of the driver’s pipe. 
Ascelinde must have remained rooted and fixed as she had been 
when last she spoke. Then there was the sound of a heavy weight 
sinking down suddenly, and immediately there followed a tremen- 
dous burst of tears. 

Such a burst of tears! Vincenz had never had even a distant no- 
tion of what a real burst of tears was until this moment: his igno- 
rance was enlightened now. Ascelinde did not shed tears often, 
but the floodgates once let loose, they burst forth with the violence 
of a torrent. This woman never did things upon a small scale; her 
tears were only in proportion to her person. Her sobs made the 
carriage shake ; her wails must have struck terror into the hearts of 
any horses not as completely deadened by fatigue as these dust-laden 
quadrupeds: even the driver forgot the next puff of his pipe, and 
the duck burst into a quack of alarm as it fluttered splashing across 
the pond. Small wonder if Ascelinde wept! With this flood of 
tears she was weeping away whole avenues of lofty trees, whole ter- 
races and turrets, entrance-gates and flights of steps: her tears were 
as plentiful as the waters of her imaginary lake, her sobs as deep 
as the phantom mines of wealth whose fond memory she was 
forced to relinquish. She had been seven years old when she saw 
these things last; she was fifty now. During forty-three years the 


148 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


memories had lain and grown; what wonder that, brought thus face 
to face with the original, the big woman should be annihilated? At 
the first burst Vincenz turned round terrified. He was but an ig- 
norant man after all, and had but a very dim notion of what might 
be expected to follow upon this truly feminine hurricane. He did 
not look at Madame Mohr, however, he looked past her at her daugh- 
ter. Would Gretchen break down? If Ascelinde’s substantial frame 
were so shaken by this grief, then must not the effect on that perish- 
able blossom be fatal? And he was then her murderer? Oh, terror 
of suspense ! 

Gretchen did break down, only a minute later than her mother. 
She too, like Ascelinde, had been standing in the carriage; she too 
now sank down and threw herself back on the seat, and she too drew 
out her handkerchief and convulsively hid her face behind it. 

Dr. Komers was just calling on the earth to open and swallow him 
up, when he checked his mental invocation at a sound which struck 
on his ear. 

Oh, joy of relief! Those were not sobs; she was not weeping, she 
was laughing. With her face buried in her handkerchief, she was 
attempting to smother the irresistible laughter which overpowered 
her without mercy. It was a mere chance, after all, whether the 
ludicrous side or the tragical side of the situation came uppermost 
— it was such a nice question of balance between laughter and tears. 
For Ascelinde it was unbroken tragedy ; for Gretchen, perhaps the 
solitary duck, survivor of so many fictitious swans, decided the bal- 
ance in favor of comedy. Each view in its way was overpowering, 
and Gretchen, with her face behind her handkerchief, was entirely 
overpowered. Her dreams of yesterday were dispelled, her fortune 
was unmade again, her pedestal was shattered under her feet; and 
Gretchen looked at the broken pieces and realized that they were 
broken, and laughed with a mirth as wild as though they had been 
the fragments of some weight suddenly lifted from off her mind. 
Again and again her laugh rose up, mingling with her mother’s, sobs. 
She laughed as only the very young and the very inexperienced can 
laugh, in such an excess of agony and enjoyment that the sound 
echoed far along the lonely road, and the deserted house stared at 
her in astonishment over its rotten enclosure; for it was many, 
many years since such a sound of mirth had struck against the 
crumbTing walls of Draskocs. 

While Ascelinde still wept and Gretchen still laughed, another 
sound rolled up in the distance and drowned even the wailing sobs. 
The rumbling thunder had burst into a loud warning, and Vincenz, 
looking round, saw that the great vault overhead had grown gloom}’-, 
threatening every moment to let loose a storm of rain. The over- 
burdened clouds hung ready to break without further warning. 

It was necessary to find shelter, and there was no shelter but this 
desolate house along-side. The necessity for action gave back to Viu- 
cenz his lost presence of mind. Ascelinde, who appeared to have 
wept away all her strength for the moment, allowed herself pas- 
sively to be helped out of the carriage. 


THE W ATE us OF HERCULES. 


149 


They were standing close in front of what seemed to be a gate in 
the centre of the plank wall. There was no handle, no key-hole, no 
bell-rope visible, no smoke issuing from the chimney of the house, 
and no step or movement to be heard inside the planking. A few loud 
raps from Dr. Komers’s stick started a hollow sound, but were fol- 
lowed by deep silence. The solitary duck in the pond was the only 
thing which seemed to speak of a human presence. It was a slender 
piece of evidence; but Gretchen argued that where there was a duck 
there must also be somebody who intended to eat that duck. 

At a more vigorous blow against the wooden gate the planks 
creaked and trembled, but held together for a moment longer; at 
the next blow they gave way, and two of them fell inward, but 
not far inward, for they were caught against the branches of the 
bushes within. 

It was now possible to effect an entrance, but by no means easy, 
for a barrier of bushes confronted the travellers, or rather a tangle 
of interlaced branches, inextricably knit together and crowding up 
to the very walls of the house. 


CHAPTER XXI. 
josika’s grave. 

“Above the graves of bnried men 
The grass hath leave to grow.”— Owen Meueditu. 

The three intruders paused in the entrance, struck with wonder 
at the singularity of the scene. The walls of the house were damp 
and tottering, and stained with streaks of mossy green ; the old 
wooden shutters gaped in rotting feebleness across the black space 
of windows within; the plank enclosure was irregular and rough; 
but for all that the spot was bewitchingly beautiful, rich with the 
wealth of fairy-like ornaments which it had pleased Nature to shower 
upon this lonely garden. 

Never in the height of its best days, such as Ascelinde had per- 
suaded her memory to remember it, had Draskocs looked as beauti- 
ful as to an artist’s eye it would have seemed now in its downfall. 

And yet the sight brought with it an irresistible melancholy; for 
the rose season was past its height, and on all sides the overblown 
roses hung ready to fall at a touch. At every step the tangled bushes 
trembled, and shook down a rain of petals — pink petals, grown yel- 
low and curling at the edges. But those showers which fell on all 
sides scarcely reached the ground: myriads of petals were caught 
in the arms of green branches so thickly intertwined that the rose- 
leaves lay there in bleached and faded heaps. The three intruders 
were wading ankle-deep in the rose-leaves of years past ; generations 
of rose-leaves, heaped up in every stage of decay — the highest freshly 
shed, the lowest crumbling already into the soft brown mould. 

No oppressed nation breaking into rebellion had ever run such 


150 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


riot as tho now neglected Draskocs roses, whose office it had once 
been to be cooked up with sugar and made into jam. The t)u*anny 
of man had ceased for them. Liberty! was the cry of the Draskocs 
roses now; and the pink roses and the white roses, meeting across 
the path, embraced each other with unbridled passion, or strangled 
each other with fierce delight. They look like intoxicated revel- 
lers, too, those pink roses with the dark purple flush which the hot 
sun has burned into them : no longer the shyly blushing buds of a 
month ago, they stare bold and unveiled into the face of the sky, 
while the white ones hang their heads, wan and pale, like beauties 
after a long night of bacchanalian dissipation. 

And the rebellious flowers are not content with having their way 
down here. They have mounted on to higher ground; they have 
flung themselves on every available hold, they have peeped over the 
wooden barricade, they have barred up the windows more effectual- 
ly than the falling planks, and scaling the walls of the house, they 
have hung up their red flags over the very grave of the tyrant. Two 
fir-trees stand beside the door, and the left one has fallen a victim 
already to the strangling roses : there it stands, brown and dead, 
where a glimpse can be caught between the smothering mass of flow- 
ers ; but the other still lives, vigorously pushing a glistening dark- 
green arm outward, as though it would free itself from the certain 
death which has crept upon it in such beautiful guise, while above 
its head the triumphant roses float at a giddy height. 

By dint of much perseverance, with the help of a penknife, and 
very much at the expense of his coat-sleeves, Vincenz had succeeded 
in fraying a passage to the house, Gretchen following close on his 
steps, while Ascelinde, limp and mournful, brought up the rear, too 
deeply dejected to defend her trailing garments against the grasp of 
the roses which, stretching forth eager fingers on either side, greed- 
ily stripped off the cascade des larmes and shed them profusely on 
the ground. “ There are still the rooms inside,” she confided in a 
whisper to her daughter; “there are still the rooms and — and — the 
jewels.” 

They had struggled as far as the fir-trees, and Vincenz tried the 
door, but it scarcely moved when he shook it, and not a sound came 
from within. The whitewash of the walls, no longer white, fell off 
in flakes and crumbled in yellowish powder on to the heads of rose- 
bushes along-side. 

The necessity of getting under shelter had grown more urgent 
than ever. The mass of lead-colored clouds had gathered together 
and hardened at the edges into thunderous rims. A white glare 
flashed out over the country, bathing each rose-head in ghastly light, 
and sunk down and flashed out again. 

They made their way round the house, having to force each step 
of the passage. It was all a repetition of the same thing — dead and 
dying roses on all sides. At the back, however, there was a change. 
Here a small space had been cleared, and a plot of rudely planted 
vegetables varied the monotony of the scene. The vegetables were 
only a few carrots and a meagre row of lettuce; but they supported 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


151 


the evidence of the duck, for they certainly had not come here by 
themselves. On the damp bed there was the mark of a footprint. 
Vincenz stooped to examine it, and just then he heard Gretchen ex- 
claim, “Oh, look! What is this?” 

There was an old wooden shed behind the house, and she was 
pushing open the door. Inside there stood a half -starved cow, with 
its head turned over its shoulder, and its stupidly patient eyes fixed 
on the intruders, while it slowly whisked its tail. 

The sight of the cow threatened to make Ascelinde break down 
once more. Was this all that remained of the stabling for the many 
horses which had grown so prodigiously in her memory? 

“I beg you to compose yourself,” said Vincenz, apprehensively. 

Ascelinde struggled with her emotion, gulped down her tears, and 
held out her hand to Dr. Komers. She confessed, in ’a shaking 
voice, that it was not his fault if Draskocs had come down to this ; 
but — for her spirit even now was not quite crushed — could he not 
tell her — she remembered now that he had said that land was more 
valuable than houses — could he not tell her how much land there 
was belonging to this? 

There was exactly this garden and one field. Dr. Komers believed, 
and he communicated his belief briefly but delicately. 

“This garden, one field, and a tumble-down house,” summed up 
Gretchen to herself, “ and a cow and a duck.” This was the inher- 
itance to be divided with Kurt ; this was the fortune which she had 
suspected Dr. Komers of coveting. Oh, she could have laughed 
again, as she had laughed on the road! She an heiress! An heiress 
to what? To this tottering ruin and to the weeds which grew around 
it. She could almost have resigned herself, for justice’ sake, to beg 
Dr. Komers’s pardon, only that he had interdicted the subject, and 
she could not find courage to revive it. 

A stealthy creak of wood aroused her; and scanning the brick- 
paved open passage which was the original of Ascelinde’s ‘ ‘ colon- 
nade,” they all became aware that on the edge of the unclosed door 
a skinny hand was resting, and that, through the chink thus formed, 
there stared out at them a strange face, weirdly human in its out- 
lines, and motionless in its position. 

Dr. Komers reached the door just in time to see it closed in his 
face ; but one wrench of his arm was enough to tear open the feeble 
plank, and he found himself confronted straight by an old woman 
in a dirty orange - colored dress, and with a dirtier lemon - colored 
face. 

She was the strangest old woman that Vincenz had ever seen. 
Her face was long, lean, and withered; her left shoulder was several 
inches higher than her right one; her orange-colored dress had to 
go up a hill and down a hill again upon her deformed back. And 
yet, hideous though she was, there yet remained something to say 
that she had once been handsome, perhaps even beautiful. Her eyes 
were faultlessly cut, although they were the eyes of a woman of 
eighty years; and the nose, now as ^ sharp as the beak of a bird of 
prey, must have been a perfect aquiline nose sixty years ago. In 


152 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


spite of her deformity, she moved with a rapidity which was almost 
startling, and whatever her shoulders might be, her long arms were 
anything but the arms of a cripple. The old woman proved to be 
stone-deaf, shrill-voiced, and bad-tempered, and Vincenz seeing that 
questions were useless, took the law into his own hands, and pro- 
ceeded to examine the house. 

Ascelinde had suffered much, but there were still fresh disappoint- 
ments to come: she had still to see the pillars of the entrance-hall 
dwindle down to rough wooden props, the mosaic pavement of the 
passage to irregularly laid red bricks, the damasks into worthless, 
moth-eaten garments, the family rubies to a paltry string of garnets. 
At every step through the shab% rooms, whose windows the broken 
shutters darkened, and across whose rotten floor the mice scampered 
squeaking before them, some idol of Ascelinde’s was overthrown, 
never to rise again. 

Four moderate-sized rooms occupied the whole of the space down 
here ; an insecure wooden staircase led up to some higher region, 
which Vincenz would in all probability have left unexplored, had 
not the yellow-faced woman, till now a passive and sullen spectator, 
suddenly placed herself across their passage, and adopted an attitude 
of defence. 

Since she was so anxious to keep them from that staircase, argued 
Gretchen, it stood to reason that there was something to be hidden 
up there ; and while Vincenz began to expostulate with the excited 
woman, Gretchen slipped past them and gained the landing above. 

She looked round her. It was very dark up here, but she could 
make out two closed doors. She opened the first: a whirl of dust 
blew into her face ; there were spider-webs spun across the entrance. 
It was nothing more than a lumber-room, with a few broken chairs, 
the wreck of a long-abandoned cradle, and a heap of rags on the 
ground. She put her hand on the next door. This was the door of 
her mother’s old nursery, though Gretchen did not know it. It did 
not open quite as easily, but it yielded at last, and starting back in 
wonder and amazement, she called to the others below — 

“ Come up, quick, quick ! There is something — there is somebody 
here!” 

In the next instant Dr. Komers was by her side, and Gretchen, 
pointing forward, whispered beneath her breath — 

“ What is it? Is he alive ?” 

The room was a low attic, with a sloping ceiling and one deep-set 
skylight window. It was bare of ornament, and almost of furniture. 
Ascelinde, reaching the door- way, swept her eyes round and felt that 
everything was familiar, even the looking-glass on the wall, even the 
crack which ran across it. It made her feel six years old again ; it 
was the identical crack which, by clambering on to a chair, she had 
been able then to get across her nose ; and now, without any clam- 
bering, the same crack mutilated the same feature. A deep leather 
arm-chair, its cover hanging in tatters, stood near the window. In 
this arm-chair there sat a motionless figure, the profile seen distinctly 
against the light of the window and the square of leaden sky behind. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


153 


Gretchen might well ask whether what she saw were alive or not ; 
for that figure, so shrunken and small, was scarcely human to look 
at, and the wide-open eyes were glassy and fixed. It Avas the figure 
of a very, very old man. His feet, dangling helplessly to the floor, 
seemed to have withered aAvay in the loose worsted slippers ; his 
hands shoAA’ed every bone ; and there was but a feeble fringe of Avhite 
hair falling under the edge of his black skull-cap. And while they 
still stared at this dismal picture, a second figure stepped into the 
frame. The orange-colored dress of the old woman brushed past 
them, her lemon - colored face was bent over the old man in the 
chair. 

Everything is a matter of comparison in this world ; the woman 
of eighty looked positively young, thus closely brought in contrast 
with the man’s petrified features. This that was Avritten on his face 
and figure was not to be expressed by the mere words “old age;” 
the woman beside him was old, but he was more than old. Near 
the ashy tint of his face, the streak of angry red in her cheek might 
almost have been mistaken for freshness ; the skin which in her had 
hardened into parchment, in him was worn away almost to trans- 
parency. Every muscle and bone appeared to have shrivelled from 
the mere force of time ; it seemed as though the fibre and material 
of which Nature had fashioned him had been used up long ago, and 
he had sat since then in this same tattered chair, forgotten both by 
his fellow-creatures and by the Angel of Death, breathing on from 
day to day in a state of existence scarcely worth the name of life. 

How many young souls had been forced to take Aviug from out of 
their vigorous bodies during the century that this man had counted 
as his lifetime ! Better and nobler and more precious lives had been 
cut off short without mercy: the roses outside had put out their 
buds and shed their leaves and beaten against the window-pane for 
years, while this old man had sat here through summer and Avinter, 
through bright days and dull days, in a state of living torpor or tor- 
pid life, forgotten and un cared for. 

The movement in the room seemed to have roused some spark of 
his lingering life ; or perhaps the thunder-clap, which at this mo- 
ment shook the ceiling aboA^e his head, had aw^akened him. He 
turned his head slowly, and his blear eyes fell straight upon the fig- 
ure of the girl in the door-way. Gretchen had come forAvard two 
stops ; there was an overblown rose in her hand, and a bunch of 
roses stuck in the front of her dead-black dress — they had begun to 
fall already — and as she stood there, with the floating petals around 
her, it seemed as if the queen of the rebellious roses had broken in 
here, and Avas advancing ready to brave him to his face. 

Perhaps the old man had seen some such figure long ago, for after 
a minute a voice, faint and far otf, reached the listener’s ears. 

“Yes, I have a long life before me — a long life before me.” 

The words Avere like an echo of something heard before. Surely 
that phrase Avas familiar! 

He Avent on nodding, Avith his eyes always on Gretchen, mumbling 
the Avords oxer again bet Aveen his toothless jaws. He did not seem 


154 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


to bear the thunder-clap, which just at this moment shook the ceiling 
above his head, and made the window rattle in its socket. 

“ They shall not touch you, .Josika !” cried the woman, bending over 
him. “ I shall take care they shall not touch you.” 

“ Did you hear that ? She calls him Josika,” said Ascelinde, in 
a whisper of extreme agitation. “I know of only one Josika, and 
that was my guardian. Dr. Komers, is this my guardian?” 

But Dr. Komers could give her no information, although he was 
beginning to believe that this was indeed all that remained of Asce- 
linde’s guardian, and that this shrivelled figure in the chair was the 
man who, forty- three years ago, had bowed Eleonore Damianovics 
out of the house, and -walked back into it, rubbing his hands as he 
laughed over the word “Justice.” He had kept his word; he had 
survived the end of the lawsuit; but his long life was behind him 
now, instead of before him, and must be gone from him soon. And 
the deformed woman beside him — could this be the handsome house- 
keeper of other days? She was the only creature who cared for his 
life or his death ; and yet he seemed to have forgotten her presence, 
as his lack-lustre eyes hung on the girlish figure that confronted him. 
Most likely he could not see her distinctly; she may have seemed 
like a vision of something unreal to his failing eyes— like the Angel 
of Death come at last to end this long, long, and useless life. But 
death could surely not come in so fair a shape, with hair like 
fretted gold and dewy lips softly parted. Hark ! Is that not rather 
the Angel of Death riding on the blast outside, which comes with 
sudden tearing force sweeping right over the plain? Is that not his 
trumpet thundering across the sky, and his signal flashing straight 
into their eyes, in a sheet of blinding light? 

“ Yes— yes, I have a long life before me,” muttered Josika again 
— “ a long life ;” and then the eyes fixed on Gretchen seemed to go 
out like the flame of a candle burned down to the socket, and the 
eyelids closed. 

The blpt, tearing onward, reached the spot; it seized the rose- 
bushes with furious strength, and all around the house there was a 
rush as of a mighty body of water. For the space of a second the 
wind held its breath, and then the rush burst out with double strength, 
and roared round them on all sides. A cloud of dust was whirled 
past the window, and a dense shower of rose-leaves was carried 
with it high up in the air. 

Upon Gretchen a fit of nervous terror had descended. It had 
^own very dark in the room, and the first heavy drops of rain fell 
like blows upon the window-pane. A fancy came over her that that 
whirling wind must carry with it something else, something beyond the 
dust and rose-leaves which flew past in a cloud. Dust and flower-pet- 
als seemed too paltry a prey for the strength of that mighty hurricane. 

In the glare of the lightning she saw the old w^oman bending 
across the chair; there was a tear on her wrinkled cheek. Together 
with the lightning came the thunder, making the house tremble this 
time through every fibre of its mouldering w^alls. But though they 
waited long, the old man in the chair did not open his eyes again. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


155 


CHAPTER XXII. 

PRINCESS TRYPHOSA. 

“ Let none object my lingering way— 

I gain, like Fabius, by delay.”— Gay. 

When the travellers again reached the peaceful Hercules valley, 
they found it by no means as peaceful as when they had left it a 
week ago. Some people looked scared, others looked anxious; door- 
bolts and shutter-bars were being examined, and fire-arms were much 
in demand. 

Alarming reports had been started, and were being circulated from 
mouth to mouth. These reports spoke of robber bands among the 
hills. It was asserted that dozens of savage men, bent upon blood- 
shed and pillage, and armed with death - dealing weapons, were 
haunting the overhanging crags. Terrifying stories were told, in 
which it was positively affirmed that mysterious individuals, myste- 
riously muffied up, had been heard at dead of night to chant myste- 
rious songs around a roaring red fire. The Hercules valley, now at 
the height of its season, was thrown into a panic; and the rustic 
police set up guards at the two entrances by which the place might 
be surprised. 

Every day some new version gained favor; and on the day of 
Madame Mohr and her daughter’s return, the newest story was one 
referring to the rocky mountain-face which rose straight behind the 
Cursalon. At the height of some hundred feet the rock was split 
by a narrow gorge, leading to the very edge of the sheer precipice. 
From that edge a man could look down straight upon the Hercules 
Baths at his feet ; and this was exactly what the robbers were re- 
ported to have been seen doing-laying their plans, no doubt, for a 
night attack. 

Ascelinde, crushed in spirit as she already was, and now met by 
these startling tales, took to her bed immediately after her arrival, 
and declared her intention never to leave it again. In truth it still 
remained a question whether a serious illness would not be the re- 
sult of that journey. 

But .Gretchen was sceptical about the robbers ; she declined to 
accept the evidence unsifted. “People always let their fancy run 
away with them,” she contemptuously remarked to herself, as on 
the day after their return she was noting down the expenses of the 
Draskocs expedition in the same leather-bound volume in which 
she had made her estimate of fortune on the afternoon of Ash- 
Wednesday. 

It must not be supposed, in spite of Gretchen’s burst of laughter 


156 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


at the gate of Draskocs, that the failure had left no dejection behind 
it. The dream had been cherished too long and tenderly to be thus 
yielded up without a pang. In this very account-book there stood 
a calculation of the supposed income -which she had assigned to 
the imaginary estate; and it was with a bitter sigh that she now 
drew an ink-line across it. There was no denying that her chances 
of fortune - making were narrowed; and, looking at her situation 
from a logical point of view, the upshot of her meditations was as 
f ollo-ws : 

A pretty girl without money has got one chance of success in life 
— marriage. I am a pretty girl without money, therefore it stands 
to reason that marriage is my one chance of success. Shall I throw 
it away, as so many foolish women have done, for the sake of beau- 
tiful whiskers or eloquent eyes? I do not think that any -wdiiskers 
or beard that ever grew -would look beautiful in a garret, and even 
the fire of eloquent eyes must be fed with something more substan^ 
tial than sighs and poetry. “ No, thank heavens!” said Gretchen, 
with a devout sigh — “thank heavens, I am sensible;” and it never 
struck her as she said it that all this excess of sense was in itself a 
folly, greater perhaps than many outspoken phases of the disease. 
“Thank heavens, I am sensible. People can say -what they like, 
but it is ever so much easier to be happy wdien one has a whole 
dress on instead of a ragged one, and ever so much easier to be 
virtuous when one has eaten roast partridges and iced pudding, than 
when one has dined off bread and cheese. Oh no, I have no liking 
at all for bread-crusts ; bread-and-cheese marriages may appear at- 
tractive to bread-and-butter misses, but the thing will not suit me. 
No,” concluded Gretchen, with an almost unnecessary decision, as 
she drew line after line across the Draskocs calculation, “No, I 
am afraid — that is to say, I think that I have only one chance of 
fortune!” 

As she reflected thus, her eyes chanced to fall on the page which 
faced the imaginary estimate. There was a list written there, a sort 
of inventory apparently; she had put it there herself not many 
weeks ago, and now her last ink-stroke was arrested, as with sudden 
attention she scanned the opposite sheet. 

She read it over and over again carefully, with thoughtfully 
puckered brow, and at last she exclaimed aloud, 

“Yes, I have another chance!” 

And leaving her last ink-stroke incompleted, Gretchen plunged 
headlong into a sea of arithmetical figures, in w^hich she was still 
disporting herself when, an hour later, Belita entered the room. 

The news of the Draskocs failure had been received by Belita 
last night with a certain amount of consternation, but without any 
remorse. Gretchen’s indignant reproaches had entirely failed in 
their effect— it was not possible to quarrel with the contessa. She 
cheerfully acknowledged that she had made a mistake, and cut the 
matter short by remarking that Dr. Komers must, after all, be a 
greater fool than she had taken him for. 

“Are those the bills for your new black dresses?” she asked now, 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 157 

throwing a glance of interest at the account-book. “ If it is a dress 
estimate, I will help you.” 

“ No,” answered Gretchen, coming to the surface of the arithmet- 
ical sea ; “ it is a calculation about my fortune.” 

‘ ‘ But, my dear child — ” 

“Belita,” said Gretchen, solemnly, “ I have got a new idea about 
my fortune. Shall I tell you how I mean to make it?” 

“What other idea can you possibly need to have beyond Baron 
Tolnay — provided you are lucky enough to get him?” 

“ But must there only be one w^ay ?” retorted Gretchen, impatiently. 
“ Why should I not make my fortune in my own way?” 

“But what way could, by any possibility, be better than the one 
you are on?” 

“ I will tell you, Belita; listen,” said Gretchen, with a ring of tri- 
umphant superiority; and taking up her account-book, she read 
from it aloud: “Thirty-eight Turkish gold-bags, one hundred and 
fifty silver -bags, nine hundred and ninety Russian rubles, five 
thousand bejas zirmilik, three golden chalices, seventeen golden 
necklaces and golden ear-rings — enough to fill three full-grown 
skulls.” 

“ Well,” said Belita, a little startled, “w^ho does all this belong 
to? Where is it to be seen? What does it mean?” 

“It is the brigand’s treasure,” was the impressive answer. 

“ And what has the brigand’s treasure to do with you?” 

“ Simply that I mean to find it.” 

Belita burst into a long and hearty laugh, while Gretchen, her 
dignity a little ruffled, proceeded to expound her views. The list in 
the account-book had been written down from memory, on the even- 
ing after her meeting with the Bohemian. About so interesting a 
subject as a brigand’s treasure the methodical Gretchen could not 
omit to make a note at the time, even though she had then enter- 
tained no serious intentions with regard to it; it was only now that 
she recognized its tme importance. She had spent an hour in ab- 
struse calculation, had ascertained what proportion of the treasure 
she would have to relinquish to Government, and what income, 
at a given rate of percentage, she could derive from the remain- 
der. 

“The ear-rings can be melted down,” she concluded; “but the 
three chalices 1 shall, of course, return to churches.” 

She could not understand what made Belita laugh. “ Since the 
treasure had never been found, it stood to reason that it must be 
there still ; and it only required an energetic and sensible person, 
unhampered by superstition, to discover it. She was a sensible and 
energetic person, unhampered by superstition, therefore it stood to 
reason,” etc. 

“My dear child,” said Belita at last, when she had, with some 
difficulty, been brought to understand that Gretchen was not joking, 
“lam afraid that the air of the Hercules valley does not agree with 
you. These Waters of Hercules seem to go to everybody’s head but 
mine; is it any mythological influence, I wonder? If you had been 


158 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


at school here, you certainly would never have carried off the prix 
de logique” 

It was a mystery to the contessa how any one, holding a baron in 
the hand, should prefer to him a mysterious treasure, which was not 
even in the bush, but rather hidden among millions of bushes, and 
which even might prove not to be, and never to have been, there at all. 

“How on earth can you talk of finding the brigand’s treasure, 
when you cannot even find that horrid black hole where you tell 
me it is buried?” 

“But I intend to find Gaura Bracvlui.'" 

“ By what means?” 

“By means of the Bohemian.” 

“But since the devout fool will not break his vow?” 

“ He need not break his vow; I have settled all my plans.” 

And Gretchen’s plans were laid with a truly feminine cunning, 
though as a first step towards them she herself would require to eat 
a slice of that most distasteful of all dishes, called humble pie. She 
had no more liking for humble pie than for bread-crusts ; but she 
hoped that that unsavory dish might this time be no more than an 
entrh to the roast partridges and iced pudding. The Bohemian was 
to be sought out, and the offer, once so coldly rejected, was this time 
to be graciously accepted. Once having got him to guide her among 
the mountains, Gretchen had full confidence in her own skill and 
management in laying traps for the innocent man’s secret, and caus- 
ing his simple mind to betray itself unawares. As for the robbers, 
she settled the difficulty by not believing in them ; and a couple of 
pistols would, in any case, be protection enough. 

Belita listened with a dissatisfied air. 

“Your interest in that unpronounceable place was always sus- 
picious to me, Margherita. I cannot understand what gave you the 
idea of this most extraordinary wild-goose chase.” 

“But it was papa’s old manuscript — I wanted him to finish it. 
And oh, Belita ” — there was a sudden break in Gretchen’s voice, her 
lips quivered ominously. 

jkisericordia! Bamhina, is there anything else wrong?” 

“Will— will papa ever be well enough to finish his manuscript? 
He is getting well so slowly.” 

She would call it “getting well ” still, even though the first sight 
of his face this morning had struck her with a chill of apprehension. 
Yes, there was a change here too, even after this one week of ab- 
sence. Of course he was getting cured, of course the tutelary god 
of the valley was not going to send him home as he came— the great 
Hercules had surely too much regard for his own reputation to al- 
low of such a thing, but other people had got cured faster. Adal- 
bert had been outstripped by many whose case had at first sight ap- 
peared more desperate. 

“He had his forty-eighth bath to-day,” said Gretchen, opening 
another page of her account-book; “and I had calculated that after 
four dozen baths he would leave his chair, and after six dozen be 
able to walk up the highest mountain in the country.” 


THE WATEKS OF HERCULES. 


159 


“So he will, my dear,” hurst in Belita, speaking with all the 
more rattling cheerfulness that she felt her friend’s fears to be well- 
founded — “so he will, if you only follow my advice. Do you know 
what would be better for him than a hundred sulphur-baths? Why, 
to see his daughter’s fortune made, of course !” 

‘ ‘ I have told you that I mean to make it in my own way, Belita. 
I will not be dictated to.” 

“Oho, my pretty fortune-hunter!” cried the contessa, “we are 
very fastidious in our choice, it seems; but how do you know that 
there is any choice remaining?” 

“I don’t understand,” said Gretchen, staring at her friend. 

“ No ; and you don’t understand either what has kept me lan- 
guishing on in this rocky fastness, and wasting the sweetness of 
Parisian toilets upon the more than desert air, when I might have 
been wearing my homarcl ecrase at Ostende, or my eclipse de lune 
bonnet at Baden-Baden. It is all for your sake, ungrateful Marghe- 
rita I” 

“I never asked you to stay,” said Gretchen, completely mystified. 

“ But you might thank one for it. Misencordia! What trouble I 
have had! Keeping my eyes open from morning to night, and not 
even leaving myself time enough to write the most pressing letters 
to my couturihre” 

“And what have you seen while you kept your eyes open?” with 
an uneasy curiosity. 

“ Plenty, my dear — too much. Do you remember my telling you 
that Baron Tolnay was not caught yet?” 

“ Yes, I remember. ” 

“Well, it is high time you were back. If this had gone on for 
another week, I should have been driven by the considerations of 
friendship to flirt with Baron Tolnay myself, in order to keep him 
away from that — No !” broke off the contessa, abruptly, ‘ ‘ you shall 
find it out without me. Besides, my time is up, I have an appoint- 
ment at home— some Wallachian embroidery, which Providence has 
cast in my path, and which forms a new and distinct interest in life. 
Do you dine at the restaurant to-day?” 

“ Yes, ’’said Gretchen, further mystified. 

“Well, keep your eyes open, that is all: there is a rival in the 
camp.” 

Belita walked to the door. “You have time to arm for battle,” 
she observed, turning once more. “Baron Tolnay is at Pesth now, 
seeing after some international congress, I believe ; and perhaps 
also buying unbreakable glass for the Cursalon” And with this 
parting shot the contessa took her departure, leaving Gretchen much 
perturbed. 

A rival in the camp ! What woman’s vanity would not be roused 
at the word? What ambition could sleep through such an alarm? 
Gretchen began to reflect that the brigand’s treasure was not found 
yet, and that it would be imprudent, until it was found, to go with- 
out some second string to the bow of her fortune. 

The dinner-hour had never been so long in coming; and when it 


160 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


did come, there was nothing at first sight to satisfy Gretchen’s curi- 
osity. 

The veranda was crowded: knives and forks and women’s tongues 
contended noisily against each other. The Hercules fountain, 
straight opposite, tried to drown the clatter of the knives and forks 
and the wagging of the women’s tongues, in its monotonous splash; 
while above, on his pedestal, the stone Hercules, leaning on his stone 
club, looked down with stony indifference on the doings at his feet. 
To this Hercules, "who remembered Roman warriors, and who had 
gazed upon Roman beauties, the black - coated waiters who darted 
in and out of the veranda must have seemed indeed degenerate spec- 
imens of mankind. 

There were only two vacant tables, and these stood next each 
other. One of them was the table generally assigned to the Mohrs ; 
the other was almost twice as large, and assigned to whom Gretchen 
did not know. 

It was all the uninteresting and ordinary routine, except indeed 
that out of Gretchen’s napkin there tumbled a more than usually 
eloquent and more than usually lengthy specimen of Esculapiaii 
poetry, headed by the desperately interrogative title: “Doctor or 
Patient?” and of which the verses ended with the alternate refrain — 


and 


“Be thou my Doctor !” 
“ Be thou my Patient 1” 


Whatever might be the opinion of other people, there was no doubt 
that Dr. Kokovics still continued to think himself “born under a 
rhyming planet. ” But even this symptom of unabated poetical per- 
secution had come to be a part of normal life ; and Gretchen’s equa- 
nimity was scarcely disturbed by the poet-doctor’s ardent desire 

“To feel that lily pulse, 

To view that rose-leafed tongue.” 

Nor even, though in the words of the bard — 

“That golden head should throb, 

Or ache those pearly teeth,” 

was it likely that Dr. Kokovics’s services should be called into req- 
uisition. Neither did Gretchen feel moved by the second appeal, 
in which the poet, with a spasmodic reversal of the roles, groaned 
out the symptoms of his malady, and described the fever with which 
he thirsted after 

“ The medicine of thy smile !” 

Just as the verse had been disposed of, there Was a new arrival on 
the veranda. Heads were turned, and voices for one moment fell 
into a lower key, as the landlord in person, assisted by a swarm of 
waiters, began to set plates and chairs aright. Gretchen looked up 
just in time to see the vacant table along -side of them become 
alive, amid a great deal of creaking and clattering, and napkins 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


161 


being obsequiously waved, and French and Eoumanian being jum- 
bled up together. 

The hovering cloud of waiters dispersed at last, leaving Oretchen’s 
view unobstructed. 

At first sight the newly-arrived family appeared to be bewilder- 
ingly large, but a short survey resolved it into the following ele- 
ments : a dark and good-looking man of mature age, apparently the 
head of the family, presided at the table. His complexion was Ori- 
ental, but his manners were French. Except for a blood-red fez, 
his attire in noways fell short of the highest standard of European 
elegance. Along-side of him sat a ponderous, middle-aged woman, 
with a dark shade on her upper lip, and a suggestion of past, but 
very long past, beauty on her face. Beside her was placed a dark- 
eyed girl, ungainly of feature, and of a well-nigh mahogany com- 
plexion. Next came two pale-faced, sickly boys of twelve and four- 
teen, with a starved and timid tutor between them. 

With her back turned straight towards the Mohrs’ table, there sat 
another woman whose face Gretchen was not able to see. At about 
the height of her elbow a small curly black head moved about rest- 
lessly. The boy of four or five, with the miniature dagger stuck 
into his embroidered waistband, called the lady “maman;” but it 
was the Swiss bonne along-side who tied the napkin under his chin, 
and assisted him in the struggle with his egg-shell. Gretchen could 
not even catch sight of the passive mother’s profile; she was a very 
passive mother, there could be no doubt of that. Two or three times 
the curly head turned right round, and Gretchen found herself con- 
fronted by a pair of very black eyes, looking out of a small glowing 
face. It was the face of a singularly pretty boy, and, watching it, 
she felt her curiosity aroused. The son’s good looks seemed to au- 
gur well for those of the mother. The lines of her figure, as far as 
could be judged by the sweep of shoulder, were full, soft, and round- 
ed. She wore a rather loose-fitting dress of deep purple silk, profuse- 
ly trimmed and of a costly texture, but of a color too intense to be 
in strict accordance with the fashion of the day, which had some 
time since decreed that the sicklier a color was, the higher it was to 
be prized. Her hair, rolled up above her neck and disposed in an 
edifice of massive coils and plaits, was quite black. In fact, Gret- 
chen thought that she had never known what really black hair was 
until this moment. It was not that purple or blue - black hair so 
much sung by poets, nor that silky black which shines in the light, 
but it was simply an uncompromising, unvarnished dead black. As 
I have mentioned the word varnish, I may as well add that this 
woman’s hair really gave the impression of black paint which has 
not been varnished, for it caught no glossy reflection along the edge 
of its coils— it w’as all shadow and no light. 

While Gretchen was pursuing her observations, Kurt was making 
vain efforts to secure the attention of the distracted waiters. The 
“barbarous grandees,” as he called them, absorbed the mental as 
well as physical powers of the whole establishment. The hovering 
cloud of w^aiters had first dispersed, only to return armed with a bat- 

11 


162 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


tery of boiled eggs; then, after hovering a little longer, had dispersed 
a second time and re-appeared a second time, bearing several melons 
aloft. The "whole table shone with juicy, pale-red slices, while the 
black vultures pounced upon the ruins of the egg-shells and cleared 
them away, all but one egg, which only now was being slowly 
cracked under the spoon of the unseen woman whose back-view 
Gretchen had been curiously contemplating. She took a long time 
to eat an egg, thought Gretchen, as she observed the deliberate w^ay 
in which the shell was being attacked. They were strange people, 
certainly; it could not be good for a child of four years to gorge 
himself with melon, as the owner of the curly head was doing. 
Gretchen began to wonder what would follow upon the melon. A 
large soup-tureen solved the question. What had come before had 
only been a slight skirmishing, this was the earnest of dinner begin- 
ning. Under the claws of the vultures the pyramid of melon-rinds 
vanished, together with the last lingering egg-shell. One pale red 
slice remained ; it was on the plate of the black-haired young wom- 
an. At this rate she ate her way on steadily through the long and 
complicated meal, always a stage or two behind the rest of the party. 
When they were eating fish she was eating soup; when they had 
reached the national mamaliga (a preparation of the maize grain, 
and first-cousin to the Italian polenta), she was preparing to dissect 
the fried trout on her plate. 

Meanwhile the brother and sister had ended their repast, and Kurt 
produced an elegant cigar-case. 

“ I wish I had told Tolnay to bring me some stronger cigars from 
Pesth,” remarked the precocious youth, as with the aid of the me- 
dicinal stanzas he kindled the spark in his “ Virginia.” 

“lam very glad you did not,” said Gretchen; “you smoke far 
too much for your age. I wonder where you have picked up those 
expensive habits!” 

“At school,” said Kurt, with a peculiar twinkle of his eye. “ I 
have learned a great deal at school ; smoking is not my only accom- 
plishment. But never mind,” he added, cheerfully, “ I shall make 
Mr. Howard replenish my case. Since I have not asked him for 
money, it is at least fair that he should give me cigars.” 

“Kurt, do stop talking nonsense,” said Gretchen, impatiently, 
while with her eyes she still followed the movements of their neigh- 
bors. As she spoke her attention was arrested by something un- 
looked for. 

Up to this moment the black-haired woman had remained so im- 
movable in her position, with her back and the massive coils of her 
hair turned so steadily towards the Mohrs’ table, that Gretchen was 
positively taken by surprise to see her now slowly turning her 
head. 

She had demolished her fried trout inch by inch, until there re- 
mained only one inch to be disposed of, and now she paused in the 
act of carrying the last morsel to her mouth, and, with the crisp 
brown tail held delicately between the fingers of her right hand, she 
deliberately turned in her chair and faced round towards the neigh- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


163 


boring table. Her hand remained poised in its position, and the 
loose silk sleeve, falling back, showed a full and well-shaped arm. 
It was an expressive arm, but it was not a white arm— dark-skinned, 
and with a soft shade over it as of a dusky down. The hand was of 
the same rich hue, and the well-cushioned fingers held the fishy tail 
with great firmness, although most delicately. "Gretchen noticed that 
the finger-tips were tinged witli a deeper shade of yellow. It was 
only later that this yellow shade was explained to her' as the result 
of the innumerable cigarettes which the Roumanian lady of degree 
fabricates for her own use and with her own skilful hands. 

The turning of the stranger’s neck was gradual : having reached 
the desired angle, she fixed her eyes first upon Kurt, and then the 
slow gaze moved on to Gretchen’s face, and there for a full half- 
minute it remained fixed. 

Gretchen had seen those eyes before. They had haunted her 
memory from the moment that the travelling carriages had passed 
each other on the road, until the picture of Ilraskocs had taken all 
other pictures from her mind. But seeing them again, they were at 
once familiar. They were as dark as her hair, and, like the hair, 
they seemed to want light a little; but they were beautiful eyes, 
long-shaped, well-cut, and velvety-black. The face was rather a full 
oval, with a low forehead and straight black eyebrows — almost too 
rich in the line of chin, and the luxurious sweep of the full red lips. 
She might be twenty-four, or perhaps twenty-five, thought Gretchen, 
as she marked the deliberate ease of that heavy stare. Her gaze was 
not keen or penetrating, but it was very persevering, and it remained 
where it was fixed until it was satisfied. But what could be the 
satisfaction it wanted? This fixed gaze had an object. After eating 
through the previous half of her dinner with such unmoved stolid- 
ity, it had not been without reason that she now paused and turned 
round with the last morsel of fried trout hovering before her lips. 

Gretchen went over quickly in thought the phrases which had 
just been said; but it was scarcely likely that the discussion of 
Kurt’s extravagant habits, or of the vices he had learned at school, 
or a question as to the quality of his cigars, could have awakened 
any interest in this Roumanian lady’s mind. 

For a full half-minute the black eyes remained fixed upon Gret- 
chen’s face, and then, as slowly as she had turned round, the woman 
turned away again, and the hovering morsel of trout was raised to 
her lips and vanished there from sight. 

“Who is that woman?” Gretchen asked of her brother. 

Kurt shrugged his shoulders. “Cannot say, really. One of the 
barbarous grandees. Have not learned to particularize them yet.” 

“ But she is beautiful!” 

“I rather fancy she is,” said Kurt, with the confidence of a con- 
noisseur. “I always told you that it would take very little to make 
one of those Roumanian women beautiful; this one has just hit it 
off, you see.” 

Undoubtedly she had hit it off, reflected Gretchen; and all the way 
home she thought of nothing but the beauty of that face and the 


164 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES, 


Stare of those blaek eyes, until some words behind her roused her 
from her refleetion. 

“When is the baron to return?” one man was saying to another. 

‘ ‘ On Thursday, I hear. She had a letter from him this morning. ” 
“ Who had a letter?” said the first voice. The answer was given 
in a lower tone, but Gretchen just caught it — 

“ Princess Tryphosa.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

FISHING. 

“ Bait the hook well ; this fish will bite .”— Ado about Nothing, 

About this time a fishing mania took possession of the Hercules ' 
valley. One eccentric Englishman had been enough to fire the enthu- 
siasm. of several dozen people, who immediately discovered that 
they had a passion for this watery sport. Everybody fished, and 
everybody had a different system of fishing, and everybody likewise 
spoke with withering scorn of every system but his own. The fish 
in this wild Djernis river were unwary and ignorant; and with so 
many systems brought to bear against them, it would go hard, sure- 
ly, if some hundreds of those finny barbarians were not landed be- 
fore the week was'out. 

Dr. Kokovics's System. 

Dr. Kokovics was all for energetic measures; he usually was for 
energetic measures, both in public and in private life. He quite dep- 
recated any system which professed only to lure or coax the fish 
out of their element. He argued, amidst frantic gestures and 
with much throwing back of his head to clear his eyes from the 
fringe of hanging locks, that the fish should be got out of the water 
with as much noise and general rejoicing as could by any possibility 
be managed. This object was satisfactorily attained by the means 
of explosive bombs, which being thrown into the river, sent the fish 
floating, stunned, to the surface. In this way the process was raised 
to the level of a public entertainment. Seats could be arranged for 
the ladies by the side of the river; torches could be used; and a 
band of music, stationed behind the bushes, could fill up the inter- 
vals between the bombs with martial or operatic strains — so that in 
the case of no fish being caught, the public amusement need not 
suffer on that account. A choice selection of pieces bearing a pisca- 
torial allusion, s>jeh as “ Vieni la barca e pronta,” or “ Di pescatore 
ignobile,” together with Schubert’s “Forelle,” were already noted 
down on one of the innumerable slips of paper to be rehearsed for 
the occasion. 

The Conte Francapazzi’s System. 

The Conte Francopazzi timidly objected to the foregoing system ; 
his own nerves were not strong, and bombs had played too serious a 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


165 


part in the political feuds of his beloved country ever to be viewed 
by him in the light of a mere frivolous amusement. He ventured to 
suggest that tish should be accustomed to the sight of man by grad- 
ual stages. Find a quiet, retired pool; go there for a week daily, 
with your pockets full of bread and cheese and broken meat; and — 
if you are not particular about your lining — cold vegetables. Emp- 
ty the contents into the retired pool every day at the same hour. 
At the end of the week the fish will be fat, tame, and unsuspicious. 
You have nothing to do now but to abuse their confidence and be- 
tray their trust by throwing in the daily meal, with the addition of 
hooks and lines, and you will soon have a basketful beside you. 
(This system, as being destructive to coat-pockets, was at once ex- 
tinguished by the contessa.) 

Baron Tolnay's System. 

Baron Tolnay, being in a sort of way the King of the Djernis val- 
ley, objected to both the doctor’s and the conte’s systems. The 
bombs he considered unnecessarily destructive, and the contessa’s 
ideas with regard to the ruin of coat-pockets were warmly seconded 
by him. He had no objection whatever to the presence of the fair 
sex, and he had a particular partiality for dusk ; but why, he argued 
with a semi-royal Jmuteur — why labor with one’s own hands, when 
there are hands enough to labor for one? 

“ I will order out a dozen of those lazy Koumanians,” he said, with 
that expressive smile of his which showed a flashing double row of 
teeth: “six of them shall wade up the river, and drive the fish be- 
fore them with stones, and the others shall hold the nets across, 
and meantime we can sit on the bank and watch the spectacle in 
comfort ; or, if we find anything more amusing to do, we need not 
watch the spectacle at all.” 

Mr. Howard's System. 

As for Mr. Howard, he regarded the bombs, the broken meat, and 
the wading Roumanians, all with equal and unutterable contempt. 
This Englishman, cut after so uncompromising a pattern of his na- 
tion as to be more English than John Bull himself, recognized noth- 
ing but the severest rules of orthodox and stern-principled trout- 
fishing. To approach a trout with any weapon but a rod of Far- 
lowe’s; to throw a March-brown in April, or a green-drake in June; 
to bait his hook with salmon-roe, like an English poacher, or with 
grasshoppers, like an unenlightened foreigner — would, in Mr. How- 
ard’s eyes, have been heresy, pufe and simple; as bad as taking an 
advantage in a duel would be for a Frenchman, or cheating at 
cards for an Italian, or shooting a fox for John Bull himself. Any 
fish not caught in accordance with the above-named principles was, 
in Mr. Howard’s eyes, not caught at all. “There are one or two 
pools here where one might possibly spin a minnow,” he had said 
reflectively, but for the stickles there is nothing but a grilse-fly. 


166 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


The Landlord's System. 

Flies! The landlord had no opinion whatever of those puny 
hooks, with little tufts of feather upon them, which Mr. Howard 
called flies. He would like to show them something that was like 
a fly indeed : a marvel of mechanism wound up by clock-work, and 
kept thus in motion for twenty minutes at a time. That was a 
fly, as large as a butterfly almost! A patented fly, too, but unfort- 
unately as yet too little known — hardly more known than when he 
had first met this marvel of mechanism fifteen years ago. That had 
been in the landlord’s obscure days— as obscure as the fate of the 
mechanical fly itself — when he still held a very modest position 
connected with knives and forks; long before the time when he had 
won the landlady’s heart, and stepped into the place vacated in such 
a tragical manner. 

These were the principal systems which came into fashion in the 
Hercules valley; but each of the fundamental ideas begot a fry of 
smaller ones. There were combinations and modifications, and a 
host of interpretations. The two young tallow-faced Recsulescus, 
for instance, closely followed Mr. Howard’s manner of managing his 
rod and casting his line, with only the difference of the bait ; for 
while the elder one replaced the fly by unripe grapes, the younger 
was of opinion that green peas had a greater chance of success. 

There were other systems of fishing, too ; some of them indepen- 
dent of the movement started by Mr. Howard, some of them even 
unconnected with Djernis pools and currents. 

There was the kingfisher, who, darting out of the blue shadow of 
a cave, like a winged flash of color, dived for his evening meal, and 
came up, dripping and victorious, to carry his wriggling prey into 
the depth of his rocky haunt, and there sup upon it in peace. 

Perhaps his system was the most successful, more successful even 
than that of the dark-eyed Oriental beauty, who rests in the secure 
consciousness that she has already landed her fish. 

. The kingfisher’s cave is straight above the spot of the river which 
by courtesy is called ‘ ‘ the water-fall ” — and by a stretch of imagina- 
tion may be taken for one. There the fish are leaping in a senseless 
manner, throwing themselves against the stones and dashing again 
and again at the narrow passage, in their efforts to reach the pool 
above. Not more than one in a dozen succeeds in its leap; the rest 
fall back stunned, to turn their heads perseveringly up stream again, 
unless indeed they are caught in the rebound by one of the two Rou- 
manian youths, who have turned their limp felt hats into impromptu 
landing-nets. Judging from the color of the hats, ingrained with 
greenish-brown shades, it is not the first time that they have acted 
this part. One of these fishermen, with his linen trousers rolled up 
above his knees, has taken to the water, while the other lies flat on 
the slippery rock, turning from its destination many a fish, which, 
with an abrupt transition, finds itself landed in a w^ell-worn felt hat, 
instead of in the peaceful pool above, and which, with a yet more 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


1G7 


disagreeable removal, will find itself presently landed in a frying- 
pan. 

Gretclien, who had stopped on the bridge with Belita, began by 
watching; but, as she watched, she grew infected with the irresisti- 
ble fishing mania. So presently she had made her way down to the 
water’s edge, and, armed with a green butterfly net, was rivalling 
the achievements of the two felt hats. 

One of the flshermen was known to her by sight and name. Ev- 
ery now and then young Bujor would appear at the door of the 
Mohrs’ apartment, offering for sale such natural products of the 
country as unfledged vultures and scorpions preserved in oil — the 
latter popularly regarded as a remedy against snake-bites. It was 
only the other day that he had brought to the door a bear-cub, which 
he declared to be a great bargain, but the expression of whose coun- 
tenance was not re-assuring, in spite of the assurance that the little 
monster was multu dulce (very gentle). 

Bujor’s face was of the old Roman cast so frequent in Roumania 
— one of those clean-cut profiles and purely classical heads which 
are oftener found cut upon a gem, or stamped upon an antique med- 
al, than met with in the laboring peasant. 

Surely, thought Gretchen, Bujor’s system of fishing was far pref- 
erable to that of Mr. Howard. A few minutes ago they had passed 
the Englishman, rod in hand, stern and rigid by the river-side, fol- 
lowed by his two perpetual shadows, the Recsulescu boys ; and, 
upon the well - meant question as to whether he had caught any- 
thing, he had answered by a frown of displeasure, and the informa- 
tion given in a hushed voice, comprised in the one word “Noth- 
ing!” While Gretchen after ten minutes had landed almost as 
many sprawling little victims, very much to the disgust of Belita, 
who, standing on the bridge with her train gathered in one hand, 
chaperoned her young friend from a distance. 

After a time Gretchen became aware that Belita was signalling to 
her with her parasol, and apparently calling out something which 
the noise of the water made unintelligible. Following with her eyes 
the direction which the waving parasol indicated, she could see two 
figures approaching side by side along the path. The branches over- 
head threw a shifting net- work of shade upon them, so that Gretchen 
did not know them till they had drawn quite close. One of them 
■was Baron Tolnay; the other was that black-haired beauty, whom 
Gretchen had heard called by the name of Princess Tryphosa. 

Gretchen remembered that this was the day on which Baron Tol- 
nay was expected back from Pesth. They had not met since the 
evening of the dance at the Cursalon; and thinking of all that had 
passed'on that occasion— of those words and those looks, which had 
been flattering, if they had been nothing else— it was not at all agree- 
able to her now to see him by the side of this Roumanian beauty. 
Takino- a rapid review of the situation, she reflected again that the 
brio’an'ds’ treasure was not yet found, even though the first step to- 
wards her plan had been taken some days ago, the humble-pie had 
been eaten, and the Bohemian’s services accepted. 


168 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Until the appearance of this woman on the scene, she had believed 
that Fortune, as represented by Baron Tolnay, was a prize which 
lay within her grasp, ready to be taken up or left as she chose ; and 
even though she had not yet reached the clear understanding as to 
whether she did choose or not, the thought had been pleasant, and 
the doubt now awakened was unpleasant. 

The two figures approached very slowly ; the woman’s silk dress 
trailed heavily on the ground behind her. They reached the bridge, 
and turned on to it, and now they were standing, still side by side, 
looking down at the water. 

All this Gretchen, without once raising her eyes, distinctly saw. 
From under her eyelashes she kept the bridge in view, while to the 
spectators slie appeared to be only fishing. And fishing she un- 
doubtedly was, although she thought very little now about the wrig- 
gling white captives within her net. This calm indifference, this lan- 
guid ignoring of the gaze upon her, it was all, according to her own 
theories, an advantageous laying out of capital from which she hoped 
a profitable return. With the net of her golden hair, with the line 
of her graceful arm, with the bait of her rosy lips, Gretchen was 
fishing — fishing for her fortune in the waters of the Djernis. 

Almost any man but Istvan Tolnay must have found his situation 
embarrassing. Beside him there stood a woman, and below by the 
water’s edge there stood another woman ; and his relation towards 
each of these women W'as considerably beyond that of a mere ac- 
quaintance or friend; each of them looked upon him as being in a 
sort of way her property, and each expected from him something 
which he could not possibly give to both. But Istvan Tolnay did 
not find it embarrassing ; he had not even taken the trouble to fore- 
see this contingency, which sooner or later must have come to pass. 
It was not his habit to foresee events, or to make plans for even the 
rnost immediate future. He suffered from a species of mental short- 
sightedness which made it impossible for him to see what was com- 
ing. A boundless trust in his luck, or his quickness of thought, in 
chance, or in anything, was all the provision he made against a dis- 
agreeable contingency. The pleasure of the hour, the excitement 
of the hour, the pain, the passion of the hour, these alone had value; 
for the present was everything, the future nothing. Like the lilies 
of the^ field, he took no thought of the morrow; like them, he did 
not spin, neither did he weave. Fate had made him a rich man ; but 
even had he been born poor, most assuredly he would not have been 
given to ask himself what he should eat on the morrow, nor where- 
with he should clothe himself. Beggary, disgrace, or death could 
never have preyed on his mind in advance. They did not touch 
him as long as they were not there : a glass of red wine at the mo- 
ment would be to him a more vital thing than the misfortune to be 
suffered next week; and a smile from a pretty woman to-day, conso- 
lation enough for the ruin of to-morrow. Yes; and even though the 
future were to unclose, and show him the spot where stands his 
grave, Istvan Tolnay would go forward to meet his fate, as much 
Istvan Tolnay as ever, whistling the air that pleases him best, with 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


1G9 


his boots polished to exactly the right degree, and his black mus- 
tache stiffened at exactly the most becoming angle. 

He had found it pleasant to saunter along the path by the side of 
the dark-haired beauty; and now he was thinking that it would be 
still more pleasant to stand beside the fair-haired beauty down by 
the water’s edge. It only wanted some faint shadow of an excuse 
to free him from his position on the bridge. Patience ! his luck or 
his wit would come to his aid, he felt sure. That rock down there 
was coated with slippery weed; supposing she should lose her bal- 
ance — 

And it seemed as though his unspoken wish were to be fulfilled 
on the instant ; for a sharp cry pierced the air. 

''Uitisce, uitisce! la kokonal” (See, see! the young lady!) Bujor 
was crying. 

There was a slip below, and a momentary scramble: the green 
gauze net was swept down the current. 

“She is falling!” cried Istvan; and he precipitately left the 
bridge. 

“No, worse than that!” the contessa called after him, “her hat is 
in — her new black feather ! Save it, Baron Tolnay !” 

The hat would do quite as well, thought Baron Tolnay, as he made 
his way through the stones to the river-side. “ Desolated to have to 
leave you in this way, princess !” he had said, with a glance to match 
the words, as he hurriedly left her side; and now he was smiling to 
himself confidentially under his mustache, as he thought how safe 
he would be down here from the ears, if not from the eyes, of that 
woman on the bridge. 

Gretchen was standing bareheaded by the water-edge, with a shower 
of water-drops sparkling in her hair, as she directed her two Eou- 
manian assistants in the capture of the floating hat. From above, 
Belita, agitated spectator of the scene, called out unintelligible ad- 
vice, and gazed at the sinking feather as if it had been a drowning 
child. 

“Am I in time?” asked Istvan, with a little artificial breath- 
lessness, as he reached the scene of action. “Pasha would have 
fetched it in a moment : I wish he were here !” 

“ But since he is not, Baron Tolnay, would it not be more logical 
to wish that the hat had never fallen in?” 

“But I wish nothing of the sort. If the hat were still on your 
head, I should be still on the bridge.” 

'^0\\,were you on the bridge ?” said Gretchen, with a movement 
of surprise, quite as artificial as Istvan’s breathlessness. 

‘ ‘ I have been standing there for ages. ” 

“Indeed!” with her nose rather high in the air. “You must 
have found the bridge very entertaining?” 

“Very; with such a picture to look at.” 

“You admire landscapes?” 

“Not unless there are foreground figures in them.” 

“ Those Roumanians are very picturesque, certainly.” 

Istvan laughed. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


I'/O 


“You surely do not suppose that I was looking at that vermin? 
There, stand back!” as the triumphant Bujor held out the dripping 
hat. “ Stand back, you dog, I say!” 

“Baron Tolnay!” 

The gray eyes looked almost stern for a moment. “Do you call 
this justice? How can you treat him in this way ?” 

1st van gazed at her in genuine surprise. 

“But he is not accustomed to being treated in any other way, 
Fraulein Mohr!” 

“ I treat him in another way.” 

“But they are vermin, you know,” said Istvan, good-naturedly. 

“Baron Tolnay — ” 

“You object? Very well, Fraulein Mohr, to oblige you, I will 
retract. I will not say that they are vermin. I will even go the 
length of saying they are not vermin should that give you the very 
smallest satisfaction. Look, you shall mark the generosity of my 
forgiving soul” — and he took a handful of loose silver from his 
pocket and tossed it negligently towards Bujor. “ This is the only 
language they understand. ” 

Gretchen half expected the insulted peasant to fold his arms, and 
with his foot to spurn the proffered coin, haughty and disdainful, as 
an ancient hero defying a tyrant. But, alas for the degeneracy of 
these days! This man, who could have stood as model of a Roman 
centurion, now humbly crouched down, and uttering an abject 

Mulczanim Domno!'' (I thank you, master!), patiently searched for 
the scattered coins which had been flung to him upon the stones of 
the river-side. 

‘ ‘ How very generous of you to forgive him for having saved my 
hat!” said Gretchen, still with a ring of scorn in her voice. 

“Not generous, magnanimous! It is positively noble of me not 
to grudge any one the pleasure of having served you.” 

The tone of the conversation was becoming perilous, thought 
Gretchen ; it was safer to let it drop. She was quick at these con- 
versational skirmishes, but he was quicker ; and there were moments 
when she felt an uneasy distrust of this man, with his brilliant con- 
versation, his brilliant eyes, his brilliant smile, and his over-brilliant 
boots. 

With her face turned towards the river, Gretchen stood and 
watched the hurrying waters; Tolnay stood beside her. The res- 
cued hat lay beside them on the rock, slowly drying in the breeze. 

A little while ago the sunshine had been on the river; now it w’^as 
gone, and with it was gone the color and the brightness of the over- 
hanging rocks and sharp - cornered granite stones; the kingfisher’s 
cave above the water-fall had deepened to a gloomy blue. But there 
was mueh to look at still, and much to listen to; this subdued col- 
oring is grateful to an eye tired of the sunny glare, and flattering to 
a dreamy mood. Those dark -green pools where the water circles 
round and round so sleepily; those slanting stones down whose 
polished sides it slides in a sheet of smooth glass, to break at its 
base and curl away in frothy wavelets ; those patches of milk-white 


TUE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


171 


foam clinging in stagnant repose to some drifted tree-branch, yet 
torn unmercifully by the shock of the passing current — these are in 
themselves small pictures which together make a great one. And 
there is much to listen to, for there is no river more musical than 
the Djernis. Every drowned tree-carcass caught fast between two 
rocks is excuse enough for this spoiled child of the mountains to 
break into loud - murmured and most melodious complaint: over 
every marble block and every bowlder-stone it will fret and foam 
and work itself into a frenzy of bubbles and froth. There are sing- 
ing voices in the currents and phantom choruses in the whirling 
pools. And the more you listen the more you will hear. From the 
hollow of a cave there floats a melody, sweet and plaintive as though 
the water-spirits in there were touching the strings of their harps; 
the wavelets which lap against the rock are playing a rippling ac- 
companiment, and in the strong, swift sweep of the current hurry- 
ing past, there rolls back a deep - toned reply. Where the water 
rushes headlong over a broken bed you could fancy a peal of silver 
bells; and there where it flings itself with a crash and a cloud of 
flying spray down the rock, you seem to hear the thunder of a 
mighty organ played by invisible hands. 

Silenced by the wildness of this varied orchestra, Gretchen stood 
and waited till her hat should be dry. Even Tolnay S3cmed to have 
realized that compliments, however gracefully turned, must lose 
some of their charm when shouted at the top of the voice. 

Suddenly Gretchen became aware that an unknown parasol-han- 
dle was being protruded before her eyes, while an unknown voice 
said, deliberately, 

“Mademoiselle, votre chapeau.” 

This was all that reached her ears. The fingers which grasped 
the ivory handle were stained yellow at the tips. Gretchen turned 
round, and found herself confronted by Princess Tryphosa. 

Tolnay turned also, and for a moment doubted the evidence of 
his eyes. A long, low whistle would have been most expressive of 
his feelings at this moment, but he wus too well bred to attempt any- 
thing of the sort. He was a little dismayed, though the sensation 
was only transitory. He had never contemplated the possibility 
of these few yards of shingle being actually traversed by a Rouma- 
nian lady of high degree. It was a phenomenon perfectly unparal- 
leled in his experience, and certainly it was calculated to awake some 
inconvenient thoughts as to the strength of motive which must exist. 

Gretchen was scarcely less surprised, and it took a few seconds 
before she could understand what Princess Tryphosa’s object was. 
She was offering her parasol. There was no sun now, thought Gret- 
chen, looking up; what was the use of a parasol? No, that was not 
the princess’s intention : the parasol was for the rescue of the fugi- 
tive hat, which for some minutes had been reposing peacefully on 
the rock beside her. The intention was excellent, though the offer 
came a little tardily. Gretchen expressed her gratitude. 

“ I see I am too late,” said the princess, with ponderous good-nat- 
ure, after gazing at the damp hat intently for a minute. During 


172 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


this minute Gretchen was putting her new aequaintance through a 
critieal examination. 

The prineess wore a pale silk dress, long-trained, and with trim- 
mings of laee. Her blaek hair was uneovered, and her neek and 
arms were loaded with coral ornaments. She was a little older-look- 
ing seen thus near, perhaps twenty-six, but she lost nothing in beau- 
ty. She was a rich Southern flower, full-blown, and at the prime of 
its perfection. A little time more and the flower would be over- 
blown; now it has attained that perfect development which has not 
yet been touched by decay. A few more years of indolent habits 
will have destroyed the symmetry of her splendid flgure; some hun- 
dred-weight more of dulcetia will have stained the enamel of her daz- 
zling teeth; a few thousand more cigarettes will have deepened the 
delicate amber-tint on her fingers to an unsightly brown ; time may 
even develop the dark shadow above her lip, which as yet is only a 
silky down, into an unbecomingly masculine ornament ; inaction, 
sickly sweetmeats, and tobacco together, will soon have deteriorated 
the general cast of her features. But all this will only be some 
years hence. She may not be beautiful for long, but certainly she 
is beautiful now. Her eyes alone — eyes of the languid Oriental 
type— would be enough to make her beautiful. They are peculiarly 
deep, and instinctively you wonder what lies under that depth: is it 
an immense fund of brooding passion, or only an immense stupid- 
ity? 

This was the question which Gretchen asked herself, even as she 
acknowledged Princess Tryphosa’s beauty. She acknowledged it 
freely, without reserve and almost without a pang. There was too 
absolute a difference between the styles of their beauty to admit of 
jealousy on that score. The rival whom a beautiful woman most 
fears is always the one who is likest herself: a blonde will better 
stand being outshone by a brunette than by one of her own complex- 
ion, just as a swarthy beauty will hate a fair-skinned rival less than 
one who poaches on her own premises by being dark. Gretchen’s 
self-confidence was not shaken ; Tryphosa’s beauty was an incentive 
which made her spirit rise at the thought of the coming warfare. 
She stood and looked full at the princess, and the princess looked 
full at her; and between the two stood Istvan Tolnay, with a gleam 
of something inscrutable in his eyes, and with his most provoking 
smile upon his face. 

“ Princess!” he cried, in polite consternation— for it was necessary 
that somebody should throw himself into the breach — “why did you 
not call me to your assistance ? How shall I ever forgive myself 
for having let you approach thus unnoticed? I cannot plead being 
either deaf or short-sighted. Apropos ” — and he turned to Gretchen 
—“that word reminds me— where have you left that excellent fam- 
ily lawyer, or family friend, Fraulein Mohr?” 

“At Draskocs.” 

“Oh, really? He does not seem to have drunk deeply of the Wa- 
ters of Hercules ; our valley has no charm for him. I suppose he is 
not thinking of repeating his visit?” 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


173 


“ You suppose quite wrong, then. Dr. Komers is going to spend 
liis holiday here; he only stayed at Draskocs because — ” 

“Because of the noise of the water-falls,” said Princess Tryphosa, 
deliberately. “You could not have heard me if I had called; and, 
besides, you were busy in fishing up the hat.” 

“Ah, to be sure.” said Tolnay, who had forgotten the offer of his 
assistance as soon as it had been spoken. 

“It was Istvan who fished up the hat, was it not?” asked the 
princess, turning to Gretchen with her slow smile and her steady 
gaze. Apparently she did not consider the subject of the hat ex- 
hausted quite yet, and it was against her habit to quit a subject un- 
til she had mastered it thoroughly. 

“No,” answered Gretchen, wondering a little at the tone of pro- 
prietorship with which that “ Istvan ” was pronounced — “it was not 
Baron Tolnay who fished up my hat; although I think he is half 
persuaded that he has been doing wonders of bravery, and has saved 
not only my hat but also my life.” 

Princess Tryphosa appeared to be troubled; the answer was to 
her bewildering, as Gretchen herself was altogether bewildering. 
She could not find an answer which satisfied her at the moment, but 
she decided to think out the question during the walk home. 

It was this that kept her silent while the others talked and laughed 
beside her. 

When they had walked some distance down the valley, they saw 
a big shadow, with two smaller shadows behind it. 

“Have you caught anything. Sir Hovart?” called down Tolnay 
cheerfully; and in his painfully hushed voice, Mr. Howard answered 
now as before, 

“ Nothing.” 

Gretchen and Belita laughed, and Tolnay laughed; and five min- 
utes later, when they had forgotten the stiff fisherman with his emp- 
ty basket and his unshakable dignity. Princess Tryphosa laughed — 
a deep and musical laugh. 

The situation was not lost upon her, but it had taken a little time 
to penetrate. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AMUSEMENTS. 

“Then one sat down and sighed, 

Of finding Fortune I begin to doubt, 

And fear we may have taken the wrong way.” 

Loud Lytton. 

An international congress of geologists had gathered together at 
Pesth in the interest of Science. As the interest of Science demands 
recreation for the overworked mind, and as the Hungarian Govern- 
ment was willing to pay the expense, the learned men made expedi- 
tions to various places — to the Hercules valley among others. 


174 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


The Hercules valley was immensely flattered at being in this way 
chosen, and worked enthusiastically at preparations for the reception 
of the learned men. The arrangements for their food and their 
lodging and their amusement occupied the Hercules Waters for a 
week. Flower-arches and ribbon-streamers transfigured the lonely 
Djernis valley. It might have been fancied that the mountains were 
celebrating their coming of age, or that the wild Djernis itself was 
going to lead home a young bride. The stone Hercules, whose club 
was wreathed with roses for the occasion, must have been carried 
back in memory to tlie time of Roman triumphs. 

Needless to say that in the department of amusements Dr, Koko- 
vics held complete sway. He revelled in garlands and paper-scrolls; 
his fertile brain teemed with fireworks and colossal illuminations. 
For at least a week before the great day his dreams were exclusively 
of rockets and Chinese lanterns. 

The learned men came one dusty forenoon; fifty learned men, 
with forty pairs of spectacles between them. Geologists principally; 
but they had brought their friends with them, disciples of various 
sciences. They smiled at the flower-arches, nodded at the streamers, 
and pretended they could read the inscriptions; after which they 
proceeded to refresh themselves with a bath. They then ate an ex- 
cellent dinner laid out for them in the Cursalon, while the galleries 
above were crowded with spectators who wished to see what Science 
looked like at food. A great many toasts were drunk, and in differ- 
ent languages. There was a flowery French speech, and an excited 
Italian speech; a nasal speech pronounced by an American, whom 
Mr. Howard had repeatedly and indignantly to repudiate as a coun- 
tryman; then a furious German got to his feet and hammered out 
a few angular sentences to the effect that idleness was the mother 
of mischief, and that everybody must work, work, work, if they 
wanted to get on in this world. After which he sat down, wiping 
the perspiration from his streaming forehead, and savagely helped 
himself to roast-turkey and salad. 

Red wine flowed uninterruptedly; and the fifty learned men, as 
well as some others, notably Dr. Kokovics, were in a very jovial hu- 
mor when they emerged from the Cursalon. There was then a stroll 
along the river in the interest of Science; the Roman inscriptions 
were read by a few and pronounced interesting. One learned man 
went the length of chipping off a corner of a stone with his iron-shod 
stick, and observing that the fragment was marble. Then came the 
saunter back, and the prospect of the fireworks; and next day the 
learned men would drive back the way they came, fully persuaded 
that the interests of Science had been greatly furthered by their visit 
to the Hercules valley. 

One of the learned men, on his return from the river-side, made 
his way up to the Mohrs’ apartments to pay his respects to a friend 
and colleague. 

“ AVell, Steinwurm,” said Adalbert, with a faint smile, “you don’t 
see me much more advanced than I was in May.” 

“On the contrary, on the contrary,” ejaculated the musty-fusty 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


175 


Herr Steinwurm, with his parchment - skin and his fossil smile, “I 
hardly expected to find you so well. One of our learned medical 
friends whom I met the other day was quite surprised to hear that 
you were still alive. I think it disappointed him,” added Stein- 
wurm, by way of a joke; for the floods of red wine, though they 
had not sufficed to wash away the cobwebs of antiquity, had yet 
raised the historian’s spirits almost to the level of cheerfulness. 

“Anything new at home?” asked Adalbert. 

“Ah, my dear friend,” sighed Herr Steinwurm, “science has had 
a bitter disappointment! You remember the vault of the Frauen- 
kirche, and the inscription on that stone?” 

“ I should rather think I do,” said Adalbert, dryly; “the stone has 
laid its inscription on me somewhat severely.” 

“ Well, my dear friend, it is a sad fact that that fall has mutilated 
the inscription beyond all hope of recognition. I do not wish to re- 
proach you for your part in the unfortunate accident, but Science, 
alas! has to bewail a heavy loss.” 

“ So has her victim,” said Adalbert, in a tone of irony quite new 
in him. 

“Victim of Science! Glorious title!” mused Steinwurm aloud. 

“If you are anxious to earn the glory of the title,” said Adalbert, 
with a gleam of his old humor, “ stay heie and explore the moun- 
tains. There are precipices in plenty, and there is, besides, a bot- 
tomless hole in the forest which we are searching for; and when it 
is found we shall have to let down a man on a rope to sound it. I 
think you would be the very man for that, my dear Steinwurm; 
your stature and your weight point you out as the appropriate in- 
strument.” 

“ Thank you,” said Steinwurm, a little hurriedly. 

The programme did not sound re-assuring. 

“ I should hardly feel justified. I — I — you see, I am a family man.” 

“ So am I,” said Adalbert. 

“ Yes — but, do you know, I am not particularly sure of my legs 
in mountain-climbing; a little weakness in the knees ever since my 
childhood. Where— where is your charming daughter?” burst out 
the unfortunate historian, as a desperate transition on to safer 
ground. He was answered by Dr. Komers, who, sitting at a little 
distance, had taken no part in the discussion. It was two days since 
Vincenz, having wound up the small affairs of Draskocs, and seen 
Ascelinde’s guardian laid to rest, had returned to the Hercules val- 
ley. “Fraulein Mohr has gone out to meet her brother,” he said, 
in reply to Herr Steinwurm’s question. 

“Oh, has she?” answered Kurt’s voice from the door-way; “her 
brother was not aware of the fact.” 

“Did you not meet your sister?” asked the lawyer; “she went 
up the hill-side to look for you.” 

“Never met anvbodv,” said Kurt, lighting a cigar. “I never 
went to the hill at all: I have been down to the river to see if there 
were no geologists to pick out of it: they were not walking over- 
straight when I saw them last. ” 


176 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


And having taken place on a chair, and stretched his legs on an- 
other, Kurt proceeded to make himself comfortable with his cigar 
and the paper. 

Dr. Komers, without further remark, quietly left the room. 

Kurt continued to read his paper, and the two historians talked 
history, and Ascelinde, who had left her bed some days ago, occa- 
sionally wandered into the room and out of it again, looking like a 
ghost of her former self. And meanwhile the dusk began to fall, 
and neither Gretchen nor Dr. Komers had yet returned. 

At the moment when Kurt was lighting his cigar and luxuriously 
distributing his person between two chairs, Gretchen had already 
reached some distance from home; and under the delusion that her 
brother must be in advance, was slowly climbing the steep moun- 
tain-path. The wood was quite deserted — every man, woman, and 
child being busy below with the entertainment of the learned men. 

It was many a day since Gretchen had found herself so entirely 
alone; and somehow she was not in a humor to relish her solitude 
just now. She was on bad terms with herself — she who hitherto 
had always lived on such a very satisfactory footing with her con- 
science, her mind, and her will. Now her conscience was uneasy, 
her mind was perplexed, and her will — well, as for her will, she no 
longer felt sure of it. 

The whole of the past week had been a week of fatigue, if of 
amusement. Wherever Gretchen went, Baron Tolnay went; and 
where Baron Tolnay was, there also was Princess Tryphosa — 
unless, indeed, when Gretchen’s steps had been turned to the moun- 
tains, for to the mountains Princess Tryphosa did not follow. Per- 
haps the dissatisfaction of Gretchen’s mind arose from the fact that 
her first few skilfully set traps had failed to catch the simple Bohe- 
mian’s secret; and that therefore Gaura Dracuhd, and with Oaura 
Dracului the brigands’ treasure, and with the brigands’ treasure 
her own fortune, still remained undiscovered. Or perhaps it was 
that she still felt uncertain of her victory over Tryphosa, 

There were moments when she thought the victory secure, and 
there were others when she doubted it. The doubt had been suffi- 
cient to rouse her ambition with the stimulus of rivalry — to prick 
the side of her intent, which else might have grown faint : it had 
added excitement to the meetings of this past week; it had urged 
her to throw out the line again more than once, and to play the bait 
on which was to be hooked her fortune. But in the midst of the 
game a certain uneasy dread had seized her more than once, and to- 
day it was on her again. Or was this dissatisfaction perhaps a little 
unconscious pity for Tryphosa, who, as Gretchen had long since dis- 
covered, loved Istvan Tolnay? But since Gretchen did not believe in 
love, what right had she to feel pity? No ; more likely it was a sense 
of justice. If Istvan Tolnay had been a prize equally coveted by 
them both, it would have been all fair play to contend for him on a 
fair field; but to take from Tryphosa that wliich she was not sure of 
wanting herself, this was Avhat Gretchen could not quite reconcile 
with her notions of justice and logic. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES, 


H 

i i 

She might have become yet more deeply involved in this train of 
logical deduction, had not the overhanging branch of a mountain- 
ash tree rudely caught her by the hair just as her thoughts had 
reached this point. 

It was getting late, she discovered to her surprise, and the sun 
was sinking brilliantly and fast. What had become of Kurt? She 
ought to have met him long ago. Looking around her, she wondered 
to find herself so high up; for the last twenty minutes she had steadi- 
ly, though unconsciously, been mounting, and now she stood on a 
rocky path, bordered with bilberry-bushes, while the gloomy valley 
lay at her feet. 

That uncourteous ash-tree had been the last tree of this tract of 
forest. Here the mountain was well-nigh bare; low brushwood grew 
between the rocks, tufts of delicate grass covered the ground, and 
wild-flowers shook unprotected in the breeze. Along the shoulder 
of the hill the stony path continued. 

Finding herself thus alone, a little awe crept into Gretchen’s heart. 
The forest she had just passed through had grown so black behind 
her; she thought with dread of the dark way home. 

While she stood thus hesitating, and just preparing to retrace her 
steps, a far-off sound fell upon her ear, and gave sudden shape to 
the vague alarm which oppressed her. 

She listened attentively ; there were footsteps approaching, and 
they came from the shadow of the gloomy forest. A dark figure 
could just be distinguished gliding along among the trees. As far 
as she could see, it was the figure of a tall strong man, certainly a 
figure that bore not the slightest resemblance to the brother she was 
looking for. Gretchen possessed a cool head in emergencies— at 
least so she always affirmed; she was inclined to be proud of her 
presence of mind, but her self-possession was not as perfect as usual 
to-day. The combination of the solitude, the dusk, and the sudden 
sight of that figure, sent a rush of cold terror to her heart. She 
hesitated for one moment longer, unwilling to yield to this fear; 
but when she heard a distinct cry, a sort of halloo come out of the 
wood, breaking the silence of the mountain-side and echoing back 
from the rocks, she did not hesitate longer, but started off running 
in the opposite direction firmly convinced that that cry had been 
the signal of the robber - captain calling together his band. Five 
minutes ago Gretchen did not believe in the existence of the robbers; 
but she is not the first philosopher who has discovered that theories 
will not always hold good in practice. She ran along the path, send- 
ing the loose stones flying away from under her feet, whence they 
leaped over the edge and went bounding down the steep hill-side. 
She felt the evening wind rush past her ears in a current. At every 
turn of the path she feared to come upon the bandit camp, but yet 
she dared not turn back; and in the protruding branch of every bush 
she saw a pistol pointed at her head. The tree-tops, nodding high 
above her, seemed to be telling each other tales of murder and blood- 
shed; each white ox-eye daisy, trembling on its stalk like a solitary 
star, stared at her with a pale and panic-stricken face as she flew 

12 


178 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES, 


past. Her steps slackened at last, and she stood still, breathless. 
Was she being pursued? She listened, holding her breath with dif- 
ficulty. There was no sound whatever ; but the deep shadows round 
her were closing in as if they would swallow her up among them. 

The next thing to do was to collect her thoughts and consider her 
position from a logical point of view. To go back by the way she 
had come was out of the question; her courage was not equal to 
risk meeting that black figure she had seen in the wood. All around 
her there were scattered rocks; but to the left a stony tract dipped 
down with a steep and sudden curve. According to all reasonable 
calculations, that tract must lead straight back towards the Hercules 
Baths. 

She turned resolutely down it. It was rugged, and steeper than 
she had at first imagined. “Never mind,” thought Gretchen — “ if 
it is so steep, it stands to reason that it must be a short cut.” On 
each side there was a wall of rock, bare, except w^here some bush 
pushed its thorny head from out of a slit high up. There was a 
narrow strip of evening sky above Gretchen’s head, and nothing 
but rough stones under her feet. 

The first few steps had been comparatively easy; but soon the 
path grew more precipitate, turning and twisting, and taking sudden 
jumps, in a way which paths in general do not affect. She had to 
steady herself by the rocks, for the stones slipped under her feet; 
each step sent a shower of small bowlders chasing each other down 
the pathway. 

Again there was a sound, high above her this time, and she stood 
still to listen. It was only the voice of an eagle roused out of its 
first sleep, and scolding the intruder w'ho dared to penetrate this 
solitude. 

What beautiful spot was this she had come to? wondered Gretchen 
as she looked around her; so beautiful that it almost made her for- 
get her fright. The walls of rock on each side had retreated for a 
little space, and here, before her eyes, lay a circular basin, rippling 
in living green waves. And yet there was no drop of water here ; 
the waves were only the leaves of wild hartstongue ferns, which 
filled the hollow to overflowing, curving over each other in graceful 
arches, and crowding up to the foot of the overhanging rock. Each 
glossy leaf, with delicately crimped edge, rose and fell as softly as a 
swelling wave. More than one sharp stone reared its head right 
through the midst of the green pool. 

Gretchen looked around her, and paused in spite of herself; she 
could hear her own heart-beats in the solemn silence. But she 
dared not linger; she traversed the oval space, walking through the 
midst of the waving hartstongue, and then the rocks narrowed 
again, and the track dipped down steeper than before. It must be 
a very short cut indeed, she thought, as she waded through tangles 
of green fern ; it was all she could do to feel her way down under 
the thick overgrowth which masked the passage. There were dead 
tree-trunks across her way, -and bramble-branches straggling over 
them. The gorge narrowed every moment, until her steps struck a 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


lid 

hollow echo in the enclosed passage, and the air grew strangely 
chill. Now there was hardly room for her to pass between the 
two walls. In another moment she half expected her passage to 
be barred, when all at once it widened again, and at the same mo- 
ment Gretchen found herself suddenly brought up. 

It would be a very short cut indeed to reach the Hercules Baths 
this way; for at her feet there fell a precipice sheer and straight. 
At the two sides of the gorge’s mouth the mass of rock jutted for- 
ward a little. One or two flat-topped stone-pines, like gigantic um- 
brellas in shape, and sombre to blackness in the evening light, flung 
themselves boldly forward, their twisted roots clinging to the naked 
stone, while the fading sky behind sharply set off each line of branch 
and trunk. 

This was the rock at the foot of which lay the Cursalon, and this 
gorge was the narrow slit Gretchen had so often looked at from be- 
low. The path she had followed was nothing but the stony bed 
which a winter torrent had left dry, and which the green harts- 
tongue had usurped in place of the mountain stream. The Hercules 
Baths lay at her feet; the Cursalon and the monster hotels turned up 
their roofs towards her. She was close to them, and yet insepara- 
bly divided. She could count the windows of the houses opposite ; 
she could even hear the band of music playing, and distinguish the 
voices of the people ; but she would have to retrace the whole way 
she had come before she could be at home. With a shudder, the 
thought flashed upon her that this was the gorge which even from 
below people looked at in terror; it was here that the robbers had 
been seen watching the Hercules valley and planning destruction to 
its inhabitants. How impossible the story had sounded then ! How 
possible it sounded now! Most alarmingly possible in the silence 
of this rocky solitude. 

Gretchen swept a searching glance around her, and in the same 
moment she had to suppress an exclamation of fear. Here, indeed, 
was food for her terror; not two paces off there lay something black 
on the ground. 

This was something which did not belong to the rocky solitude, 
which had not grown there — no product of nature. Gretchen stoop- 
ed and examined it; it was a wide-brimmed felt hat — just the very 
hat which a bandit might be supposed to wear drawn over his 
brows. 

For a moment she stood still, petrified with terror, unable to take 
her eyes off the ominous hat all at once; but, rousing herself, she re- 
flected that every second was precious. She held her dress for fear 
of its rustling, and on tiptoe she prepared to leave the spot. 

Before she had made two steps she got a new fright. Here was 
something which belonged as little to the rocky solitude as to the 
bandits; for what could robbers have in common with this colored- 
paper lantern dangling from a branch? 

A stone rolled close beside her, and in the same instant a man 
stepped out from behind a rock and barred her passage. She 
screamed with the sudden start. Her first sensation was helpless 


180 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


terror; her second, momentary relief; her third was terror again, hut 
terror of a different sort, for the man confronting her was no brig- 
and — it was Dr. Kokovics. 

Not that Dr. Kokovics at this moment, with his dishevelled hair, 
his flushed face, and his somewhat disordered toilet, might not have 
passed for a very fair imitation of a brigand. Even through the 
dusk his jovial humor was evident; the excellent dinner of which, 
in company with the men of science, he had this afternoon partaken, 
had indisputably left its mark. What could be the meaning of his 
presence here? Gretchen asked herself in the first moment of sur- 
prise; but in the next already she had remembered the Chinese lan- 
tern, and there came back to her recollection the vast plans of illu- 
mination for this evening which Dr. Kokovics was known to enter- 
tain. Doubtless the floods of red wine which had accompanied the 
excellent dinner had served to render those» plans more vast, and 
had engendered in the* doctor’s fertile brain the grand idea of light- 
ing up the gorge above the Oursalon. 

Gretchen had recoiled at the moment of recognition, but the doc- 
tor advanced, unchilled by his reception. 

“By the club of Hercules,” he cried, “this is luck! What hap- 
piness! What sweet and unexpected happiness!” he ejaculated rap- 
idly, shaking back his hair as he came towards her. “ To what 
good star do I owe this meeting with the beautiful Gretchen?” 

“ Thank you, I am going home,” said Gretchen, retreating anoth- 
er step, and beginning to tremble, for the excitement about his words 
and gestures was unmistakable. 

“You look frightened,” said the doctor, stopping and gazing at 
her; “ this solitude alarms your gentle mind. But fear nothing; 
trust yourself to me; Kokovics is your knight. This arm will — ” 

“1— I don’t want to speak to you. Dr. Kokovics,” said Gretchen, 
steadying her voice. “I wish you would let me pass.” 

She made a step forward, but the movement aroused the doctor’s 
excitement to an alarming degree. He spread out his two arms in 
such a way as to suggest a gigantic black bat preparing to fly, and 
effectually to bar the narrow entrance of the gorge. 

‘ ‘ Cruel Gretchen ! By what crime have I deserved this treatment ? 
Has not my devotion touched your heart? Why have you persisted 
in closing your eyes to the humble verses I have dared to lay at your 
feet? Why wiiryou withliold from this poor love-sick heart 
“ ‘ The medicine of thy smile ?’ ” 

declaimed the Boumanian with appropriate quotation from his latest 
stanza. 

“ Be thou my doctor 1" 

he hummed softly, wedding his thought to mu^c on the spur of the 
moment. “Assuredly, oh fair physician, I am not your first case, 
but undoubtedly I am the most desperate. Our correspondence is 
my only solace, the one recipe which can cure my — ” 

“ Our correspondence! How dare you speak of ‘ our ’ correspond- 
ence?” cried Gretchen, with icy scorn. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES, 


181 


She had retreated step by step, until she now stood on the edge of 
the tiny platform, looking down straight at the houses below. Down 
there the people were talking, and the music was still playing. She 
could count the trees in the garden, she could distinguish the stone 
Hercules at his post. Ah, if the god of the valley would but scale 
the rock and wield his club in her assistance! To be so near help 
and yet so far, made the situation only the more tantalizing. 

“Yes, our correspondence, fair Gretchen; but I will reproach you 
no longer. This rencontre makes up for everything; how gracious 
of you to meet me here, and thus by your glorious presence to sweeten 
my task! You find me working for the public amusement; but do 
not imagine that I neglect the public for the private on that account. 
How delightful such a task will be when shared by you ! Together 
we will labor; together mount the rocks, and hand in hand we shall 
kindle the fairy lamps.” 

The color burned like a red flame in Gretchen’s cheek; she was 
shaking from head to foot, for the Roumanian’s glittering eyes struck 
her with terror. 

“ Dr. Kokovics, will you let me pass this instant? every word you 
say is an insult. I refuse any explanation. Have you forgotten 
that you have a wife and children?” 

“Eight children!” cried the doctor, with a resounding sigh, and he 
plunged both his hands into the deep waves of his hair. ‘ ‘ Me HercU ! 
Oh barbarous cruelty of woman! Y'ou are not going to cast them 
up all eight in my face, fair Gretchen ?” 

“If you do not stand aside immediately,” said Gretchen, “I shall 
call for help to the people below.” 

“They could not scale the rock, fair lady; it would be a useless 
strain upon your delicate throat, which, as a doctor, I could not coun- 
tenance. True, I have not the happiness of being your medical at- 
tendant; but in this felicitous moment who can forbid me to sing, 

“ ‘ Be thou my patient V ” 

He came a step nearer to her. “Why this haste to terminate our 
delightful meeting? Consider the beauty of the spot! Look at the 
weirdly towering rocks all around us, the carpet of waving fern at 
our feet. We are in the heart of nature; what place more beautiful 
for a lovers’ meeting? My muse inspires me — the verses are crowd- 
ing to my head; I shall write a sonnet upon this happy moment!” 

“Let me pass— let me pass!” cried Gretchen, in an agony, pushing 
out her two hands before her, for the doctor, flushed and smiling, 
was slowly coming nearer. On one side this odious man, on the 
other the precipice. Would not the precipice be the lesser evil of 
the two? In her terror she almost thought so; she did not shrink 
as she measured the black and giddy cliff. Might she not save her- 
self by clinging to a ledge, or to one of those strong-armed bushes 
below? 

Her bewilderment was so great that she had not heard an ap- 
proaching sound coming down the gorge. Now a distinct shout 
struck her car; it was the same sound which had scared her in the 


182 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


wood a little time ago. It must be the robbers coming; but the 
robbers could not make matters worse than they were, and possibly 
they might make them better. With what delight she would yield 
up her purse and her ear-rings in order to be rid of this odious man ! 

“We are wasting our moments, beautiful Gretchen!” cried the 
doctor, advancing. “You cannot deny me one kiss!” 

“If you come a step nearer, I shall jump down the rock,” she 
said, deadly pale by this time. 

“I could never allow that — as a doctor,” said the Roumanian; 
and as she stood with one foot on the brink, he seized both her 
hands and drew her forward. 

With the fury of despair she struggled; her teeth set, her eyes 
flaring wildly. The leap down the rock would have been easy at 
that moment, for close before her was the Roumanian’s flushed face. 

She shut her eyes, and shuddered in sickening dread ; his fingers 
closed round her wrists with a drunken strength. The whole scene 
swam in her brain — rocks and trees and Chinese lanterns were blend- 
ed into one formless mass. 

“I could never allow that — by the club of Her — ” The Rouma- 
nian’s customary invocation turned suddenly into something that 
sounded very like a curse. Was that the doctor’s voice? 

With a wrench Gretchen felt herself freed, and, looking up, she 
saw what looked like Dr. Kokovics turned into two Dr. Kokovicses, 
and the first Kokovics grappling with the second in the dust. 

Terror had so blinded her that she could not at once understand 
what had happened ; she could only stand by, staring helplessly at 
those fighting men. Had the god of the valley come indeed to her 
assistance? and were those the strokes of his weapon? The walls 
of rock threw back the sounds which struck upon them, and they 
were ghastly sounds indeed; hot curses and heavy blows following 
upon each other furiously and fast. Never, until this moment, had 
man dared to desecrate with his passion this wild sanctuary of nature. 
Both combatants were tall and strong, but the Roumanian was per- 
haps rather less steady on his legs than usual. It was not a minute 
after the first attack that one of the two men was down, on the very 
brink of the abyss, and his opponent above him, with one knee on 
his chest, and his hands upon his throat. 

Gretchen uttered a half-stifled scream, for it seemed as if the con- 
queror, in the heat of his victory, were going to fling the vanquished 
man down that fearful rock. 

At the sound of her voice the kneeling man turned, and in the 
failing light she recognized Yincenz Komers. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


183 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE STORY OF THE BROKEN HEART. 

“ I have Tiuclaspt 

To thee the book even of my secret sonl.” 

Twelfth Night. 

Gretchen had to look again to make sure that it was indeed Dr. 
Komers. Those were his features and his eyes, but they wore an 
expression which made him scarcely recognizable ; the violence of 
physical movement and of mental emotion had driven the blood to 
his face and the fire to his eyes. He looked magnificently fierce, 
with his clinched hands and the quick dilation of his fine-cut nostrils. 

“Dr. Komers!” cried Gretchen. 

Even while she spoke. Dr. Komers had let go the grasp on his ad- 
versary’s throat, and had risen from his knees to his feet. He still 
breathed heavily; his coat was -torn, and both his hat and spectacles 
had fallen off in the struggle. 

The Roumanian doctor lay where he had fallen, giving not the 
smallest sign of life. 

“ Is he dead?” asked Gretchen, under her breath. 

Vincenz bent over him. 

“ Only stunned, I think;” and he undid the unfortunate Kokovics’s 
collar and loosened his cravat. “Only stunned, and I dare say a 
good deal bruised.” 

The unfortunate Kokovics opened his eyes, and looked up drow- 
sily into his enemy’s face. 

“ Am I dead?” he inquired, in a feeble whisper, 

“I hope not,” said Vincenz. “Let us get you to your feet, and 
we shall see. ” 

“What am I then,” asked Kokovics, “if I am not killed?” 

“ Knocked down, that is all.” 

“Rather badly knocked down,” murmured Kokovics, dreamily. 
“ I have been knocked down before.” 

“ I have no difficulty whatever in believing it,” said Vincenz. 

“But never quite so badly as this,” finished Kokovics. 

“ Will you be so kind as to get to your feet? You can have my 
arm if you like,” 

Kokovics looked a little distrustful at the arm. 

“You will oblige me by making haste,” said Vincenz; and the 
Roumanian struggled from the horizontal to the perpendicular. 

He stood looking about him, a most piteous figure, with his long 
hair hanging over his eyes, and all his spirit crushed out of him. 

Nobody spoke for a minute, while Dr. Kokovics slowly gathered 


184 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


his senses together. Then he let go Vincenz’s arm, and stooped to 
pick up his wide felt hat. 

“Those hands of yours are like iron hammers,” he said, sulkily, 
rubbing his bruised arms with an injured air. He crushed his hat 
on to his head, and turned to go up the gorge. 

“Not quite so fast, if you please, ” interrupted Yincenz, speaking 
more in his usual tone. “ You do not leave this spot until you have 
made an ample apology to this lady.” 

Perhaps it was the vivid recollection of the lawyer’s iron fists 
which induced Dr. Kokovics to stand still when thus called upon. 
He pulled his hat farther down on his forehead, and mumbled a 
few words of incoherent apology. 

“ Let me tell you too,” said Yincenz, in a studiously quiet voice, 
“that if you ever again dare to address a single word of any sort to 
Fraulein Mohr, I shall denounce yo\i as a blackguard and a villain ; 
and at the first hint of impertinence, I shall thrash you before the 
eyes of anybody who will take the trouble to look on. Is that quite 
distinct to you ?” 

“Quite,” muttered the Eoumanian, quaking in his shoes. 

Whatever harm the fall might have done to his constitution, it 
certainly had had the salutary effect of sobering him completely. 
All his blustering self-confidence of five minutes ago was vanished, 
leaving no trace behind it. They were of much the same stature, 
the Roumanian and the German, yet the short-sighted lawyer looked 
by far the grander man of the two. 

Dr. Kokovics seemed to have shrunk to half his size, as he turned 
and slunk away among the rocks, leaving his paper lamps abandoned 
to their fate. No red and blue lights will to-night rejoice the fifty 
learned men. Here the lamps will hang forgotten, until the rain has 
washed away the blue and red color, and the wind has torn them to 
fragments. 

Dr. Kokovics waited until he had got one rock between him and 
his late enemy, and then, as a parting shot, he called back across 
this rampart, 

“Good-evening, valiant knight ! No doubt you will now enjoy 
the favors which your confounded fists have taken away from me. 
The fiower of beauty to the conqueror ! Such are the fortunes of 
war !” 

Yincent clinched his hand and made a step forward, but the doc- 
tor was flitting away like a black ghost in a hurry ; and he turned 
back with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. Gretclien was 
leaning against a rock — her face very pale, and her lips twitching 
convulsively. 

“lam afraid you have had a great fright,” he said, looking at her 
anxiously. 

“No, it is nothing,” she managed to say with difficulty. She 
made a step forward, meaning to re-assure him as to her strength, 
but stumbled and caught hold of the rock. 

“I shall rest a minute,” she said, faintly— “ I don’t think I could 
walk just yet.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


185 


“ Upon this stone, then,” said Vincenz, as, with fingers as deft and 
delicate as those of a woman, he cleared off the loose sticks which 
encumbered the low rock beside her. 

“Thank you,” said Gretchen, as she sat down ; she would have 
liked to say more, but she was not sure of her voice. 

Dr. Komers did not sit down ; he stood some paces away from 
her, reflecting what else he could do for her comfort, for it was evi- 
dent that she was both frightened and faint. He could hear her 
teeth chattering; and the thought that she might suddenly be taken 
ill terrified him beyond measure. The only woman he was inti- 
mately acquainted with, his sister Anna, had given him frequent 
and alarming examples of the frailty of the female constitution. 
His coat was the only available wrap, and taking it off, he put it 
over her knees and feet. “If you don’t mind,” he said, apologeti- 
cally.” 

‘ ‘ Thank you, ” she said again. Then, after a pause, ‘ ‘ How did you 
find me here?” 

“Your brother came back without you,” answered Vincenz, with 
a shade of embarrassment. “I thought I could overtake you and 
tell you of the mistake, for it was getting late. I walked as fast as 
I could ; but apparently you must have walked faster, for I could 
not get up to you. When I came to the head of the gorge, I could 
hear the stones rolling farther down, and 1 guessed you were on in 
advance. Did you not hear me shout?” 

“ Oh, then it v/as you who shouted?” said Gretchen, beginning to 
be ashamed of her groundless alarm. 

“I am afraid that villain has frightened you most terribly,” he 
added, looking down at her with a concern that was more that of a 
father than of a lover. 

Gretchen tried to smile. “I think you frightened me also a 
little.” 

“I frightened you !”he repeated, in a tone of the blankest con- 
sternation. “ Is that possible ?” 

Looking at him at this moment, it did seem scarcely possible to 
Gretchen herself. He had quite resumed his ordinary manner — his 
voice and his look were gentle, almost timid. 

The hands which had dealt such crushing blows a few moments 
ago, with what tender care had they arranged the seat for her, and 
placed the coat over her feet ! And yet neither in the tone nor 
words was- there the shadow of anything which Could have alarmed 
the most sensitive delicacy. They were alone here in this wild soli- 
tude, and she knew that this man loved her ; but she knew also, 
with as firm a conviction, that she was as safe as if her father had 
been by her side. This time it was not by any process of logical 
deduction that she reached this conclusion ; the conviction sprang 
only from an unreasoning but not a mistaken instinct. 

“Did I really frighten you ?” asked Vincenz, anxiously. 

The flush of movement was still on his face ; and though he was 
calm again outwardly, the strong effort he made could not succeed 
in suppressing his inward excitement. A man does not pass fifteen 


186 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


years at desk drudgery, and then find hinaself suddenly plunged 
into a hand-to-hand fight without feeling his whole nature stirred 
up by it. The strength w^hich had so long lain dormant and useless 
had found a subject on which to wreak itself, and instinct had told 
him how to use his advantages. 

“You would have been frightened at yourself, if you could have 
seen your own face,” said Gretchen. 

“ I am not at all sorry that I knocked him down,” said Yincenz, 
simply ; “ but I am sorry I could not have knocked him down more 
quietly. I am afraid ” — with growing anxiety — “ that I must have 
used some rather strong language.” 

“Rather,” said Gretchen, smiling. “I thought you were going 
to throw him over the rock at one moment.” 

Yincenz looked grave. 

‘ ‘ I believe I was. If you had not screamed then, I should have 
had Dr. Kokovics on my conscience. I scarcely knew what I was 
doing. I felt rather wild just then. I see now that it must have 
frightened you terribly. Can you forgive me ?” 

“Oh! it is you who should forgive me,” said Gretchen, catching 
her breath. 

Dr. Komers made no answer, but turned and walked a few steps 
away. His back was towards her, and to all appearance he seemed 
absorbed in the contemplation of a clump of trampled fern. The 
green tufts of hartstongue had suffered grievously in the struggle: 
the broken fronds lay crushed on the ground, all their juicy life 
stamped out of them in that brief but furious fight. It would be 
long before they raised their heads again. 

There was a silence of some minutes. The last of the daylight 
was dying fast; the black stone-pines frowned down from their 
high seats; there was not a sound in the lonely gorge. Overhead 
the evening stars were beginning slowly to shine; and, as though the 
valley had been a lake which sent back the image of each star in 
the sky, the lights below sprang up one by one. 

Gretchen sat on the stone with her hands clasped before her. Her 
heart beat fast ; but it was not with fright now — it was with a sort of 
nervous expectation. What was Dr. Komers going to say next? 
Was he going to tell her again that he loved her? Ah no! that was 
to be never again. She had forgotten that — never again! 

“ Friiulein Mohr,” said Dr. Komers, coming back towards her, “it 
is no wonder that I frightened you to-day; the wonder is rathe^ that 
I should not have frightened you long ago. Perhaps you have nev- 
er guessed that I am a passionate man?” 

“I have thought so — once before.” 

Though it was so dark, she blushed crimson ; for she was thinking 
of the scene on the morrow of the Cursaloii ball. 

“ I understand,” he said, calmly. “ Well, since you have seen me 
on that day and on this, I had better tell you at once that my temper 
has been my ruin. It is entirely through an act of passion that I 
have shipwrecked my sister’s life and my own.” 

He hesitated for a moment before going on. “Perhaps, if it 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


187 


would not weary you too much, I should like to tell you the story 
of that day. I have not told it to any one yet; but I think you 
could forgive me better for my occasional violence if you heard the 
rest. May I tell it to you?” 

“Yes, yes; oh, please tell it me!” she said, with an eagerness which 
surprised him. 

“ It must be the story of the broken heart that he is going to tell 
me,” thought Gretchen. 

Ever since the day of her last passage of arms with Anna Komers, 
an illogical curiosity had possessed her with regard to that broken heart. 

“Please begin,” she felt inclined to say. She was as anxious as 
a child who has been promised a new fairy tale, and half expected 
the story to start with “ Once upon a time.” 

“Thank you,” said Vincenz, as if she had conferred a favor on 
him. “But it would be imprudent to stay here longer. I will tell 
you as we walk home. Would you mind making use of my arm to 
get back through the gorge?” 

Gretchen felt stronger now, and rising to her feet, she took the 
arm which Vincenz almost diffidently offered her. As long as they 
were clambering up the torrent-bed, there was no possibility of con- 
versation: each difficulty was increased tenfold by the darkness. 
There were gloomy shadows and sharp rustles all around; but Gret- 
chen never started once. She wondered at the strength of her own 
nerves. Even if the robber -band had sprung out upon them, she 
felt as if she could have faced them coolly now. The proofs of 
strength which Dr. Komers had given could not fail to re-assure the 
most timid of female minds. As they passed the circular basin, 
where in early spring the melted snow expands to a deep and whirl- 
ing pool, the eagle put its head out of the nest above them, and ex- 
pressed its displeasure at this further intrusion. It had been an even- 
ing of abnormal disturbance in the experience of this lonely eagle. 

When they had gained the level path, Vincenz spoke again. 

“ It is a very short s.tory I have to tell, and very simple — most de- 
spairingly simple it has proved for both Anna and me. I need not 
tell you that I am a poor man— for I have never concealed my pov- 
erty,” said Vincenz, with an effort; “but I have not always been 
poor. My father was rich : iintil she was past twenty, Anna did 
not know what it was to have a wish unfulffiled. It was not long 
after her twentieth birthday that my father lost his fortune. It is 
no use troubling you with details, which at the time I did not thor- 
oughly understand myself ; the practical fact of finding that we 
were beggars was quite sufficient for all intents and purposes. My 
father’s death followed soon upon the crash ; Anna and I were left 
to manage for ourselves. Our case was not by any means desperate. 
In his better days, my father had had many firm friends: they did 
not prove themselves quite so firm in the time of misfortune; but 
one at least, a Count Perlenberg, occupying a high ministerial po- 
sition, did not immediately turn his back upon us. He generously 
offered me a position which opened to me the possibility of a brill- 
iant diplomatic career. The prospect so delighted me, that in my 


188 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


eyes it more than made up for the loss of fortune. I worked hard 
for two years, drawing so high a salary that Anna could live in ease, 
almost in luxury. 

“ Count Perlenberg had one son, a fair-haired, pink-cheeked young 
man. I thought him a coxcomb then, God forgive me! With what 
patience would I bear his coxcombry now, if I could see Conrad 
Perlenberg before my eyes! All this happened in Vienna, you must 
know. But for some mouths I was absent on an official mission. 
It was the first lengthy separation which had ever taken place be- 
tween Anna and me. When I met Anna again on my return, it 
struck me, for the first time, that my sister was pretty; there was a 
new bloom on her face, a happier smile on her lips, a brighter light 
in her eyes. She had never looked like this before, and I did not 
know how to explain this change. 

‘ ‘ It was only now that I made the acquaintance of young Perlen- 
berg. He did not occupy any recognized position in his father’s 
office, and I was not even aware that he gave himself the show of 
authority. 

“ One morning soon after my return, on reaching the office at the 
usual hour I found lying on my desk the draft of an official report 
of some importance, whose composition had been intrusted to me, 
and wliich I had framed with particular care. It w’as being re- 
turned to me now, with corrections, written in an unknown hand, 
and evidently proceeding from some inexperienced person. Half 
of what I had written was stroked through, and there were remarks 
substituted, which displayed almost ludicrously the waiter’s igno- 
rance. I never was very patient of correction ; the sight of my 
draft, on which I had spent such scrupulous care, now^ thus igno- 
miniously returned upon my hands, roused my anger on the instant. 
I might have borne it better if I had been alone, but the harmless 
chaffing of my companions stung me to the quick. I knew that I 
was right, and that my unknown corrector was wrong. I -was very 
young and very hot-headed, and the sense of the injustice overpow- 
ered me as an unbearable insult. 

‘ ‘ ‘ The man who has written this is a fool !’ I said aloud, and 
flung the paper to the floor. 

‘“You will not dare to call one a fool,’ said a small voice; and 
through the open door- way Conrad Perlenberg suddenly stepped for- 
ward, looking rather more white than pink this morning. We stood 
opposite to each other, and the young counts and barons around tit- 
tered a -little as they bent over their desks. I had not expected to 
see Count Perlenberg; but my blood was up, beyond all power of 
restraint. 

“ ‘ I cannot take back my words,’ I said, ‘ even if you have writ- 
ten it.’ 

“ Young Perlenberg uttered a laugh, which w^as half embarrassed 
and half hysterical. 

“ ‘This is suitable language,’ he said, turning to his companions, 
with an unsteady sneer— ‘ most suitable language for a man who, 
but for my father, might be in want of breakfast to-day. ’ 


THE WATEKS OF HERCULES. 


189 


“ I am convinced now that Perlenberg had lost his self-control as 
much as I had lost mine, for he was not a bad fellow by nature ; but 
at the moment I felt only the taunt, and it maddened me. I don’t 
remember making any answer; I know only that in the next mo- 
ment the tittering at the desks had entirely ceased. I had struck out 
my right hand, and Count Perlenberg was lying on his back on the 
ground, while the rest of the jemuase dore were dragging me back 
by the arms and shoulders. They might have left me alone; for at 
the very moment of the fall I was already repenting having knocked 
down a man who was six inches below my own height.” 

Gretchen could not repress a rising laugh, as the picture of the 
prostrate Perlenberg rose before her mind’s eye. Vincenz looked at 
her gravely. 

“Does it amuse you? I dare say it was comedy to the spectators, 
but it turned out tragedy for us two. As soon as we had both re- 
covered our senses, we were told that we must fight, and with pis- 
tols, as the offence had been so grave, and given before witnesses. 
No personal enmity was at fault. It had been entirely through a 
mistake that young Perlenberg had got hold of this document, and 
he had corrected it without knowing whose draft it was, while I had 
spoken unaware of the name of my corrector. But, for a hot word 
and a hasty act, the world decreed that each should have a shot at 
the other’s life. I had never fought a duel before, and I was foolish 
enough to be rather pleased at the prospect. I took care that Anna 
should not guess why I left the house at so early an hour. Perlen- 
berg had the first shot, being the offended ; he aimed fairly well, and 
hit me in the left arm. I felt a stinging pain, but the excitement 
drowned every bodily sensation. 

“After I had fired, which I did in absolute blindness, fori could 
not see six paces ahead, the young count stood upright for a mo- 
ment, then staggered, and was caught in the arms of his second. He 
was not dead, but he was mortally wounded. He was privately re- 
moved to his house, and I went home, chilled and sobered; and at 
the door I was met by Anna, who had suspected something abnor- 
mal. I could not command my emotion; and my wounded arm, 
which I had half forgotten, spoke for itself. Some hint dropped 
by a servant led her to think of a duel, and she knew me too well to 
believe such a thing unlikely. She insisted on binding up my arm, 
which still bled. I let her do it; but as I watched her preparing the 
bandages with such sorrowful anxiety, I felt a great discouragement 
come over me. ‘I have done worse for him than that,’ I said, 
gloomily. ‘ They tell me he can scarcely live.’ 

“ Anna looked at me with scared eyes. 

“ ‘ Who is he?’ she asked. ‘ You must tell me, Vincenz.’ 

“ ‘ It is Conrad Perlenberg,’ I said. 

‘ • I shall never forget the look which Anna gave me, and the cry 
which she uttered; it was the death-knell of her youth. The band- 
age she was holding dropped out of her hands, and she fell fainting 
on to the chair beside her. It was long before she came to her- 
self, and then I learned the whole truth. She had loved Conrad Per- 


190 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


lenberg, whose acquaintance she had made in my absence, and only 
a few days ago they had become secretly engaged. It was the first 
secret she had ever kept from me, and, by heavens, the innocent 
mystery cost her dear! God knows what she can have seen in that 
pink-and- white face which made her love him 1 But I have found 
since then that those are the sort of men who know how to catch a 
woman’s fancy.” How bitter sounded the sigh which went along 
with these words! 

“There followed a fearful week,” said Vincenz, continuing his 
story. “From the very day of the catastrophe, Anna fell into a 
dreadful illness. I was half distracted; every moment that I could 
spare from my sister I stole away and stood in the unfreqented 
street, where straw had been laid down before one gloomy house, 
watching the window of the room where Conrad lingered between 
life and death. It was winter, but I passed half the night at my 
post, wrapped in my cloak, and with my eyes on the light of that 
sick-room. On the eighth day I came there early; and, looking up 
as usual, I saw that both windows were flung wide open. It was a 
bitterly cold January day, and those open windows could mean but 
one thing.” 

His voice shook for a moment, and he broke off abruptly. They 
had come to a rough part of the pathway^ and as Vincenz put out 
his hand as a support, Gretchen fancied it was not as steady as usual. 
She stole a glance up into his face, and saw the painful emotion 
which had been called up by that recollection. 

“You should not have told me this, ” she whispered ; “ it pains you. ” 

He looked down at her quickly, and then dropped her hand. 

“ It does pain me; but what matters the pain? I should like you 
to know it all. People have sometimes been kind enough to call me 
a quiet, sensible man : there is no great merit in being sensible after 
that one experience I have had. From that fatal day in the office 
Anna’s life and mine were violently transformed. I sent in my res- 
ignation myself, but I had one more short interview with Conrad’s 
father. For the sake of his old friend’s memory. Count Perlenberg 
declined to prosecute me, for the fatal termination of the duel brought 
me within reach of the law. ‘ But it could not give me back my 
Conrad,’ he said to me, sorrowfully. I might go where I liked, 
only I was never to come under his eyes again. So we went, Anna 
and I, like a pair of outcasts: we left Vienna, and quietly vanished 
out of the circles of the capital. Anna remained an invalid from 
the day of her recovery. Every trace of youth and bloom was swept 
away by that illness. She never had been beautiful ; she had scarce- 
ly been pretty, except during that short period of happiness which I 
had destroyed. Conrad Perlenberg’s love was the sun which had 
made her beauty bloom, and my violence was the frost which killed 
it. I asked her forgiveness on my knees, and she gave it me at once : 
she had always idolized me since my babyhood, and her affection was 
not by one whit weakened after the catastrophe. W e began life again 
at the beginning. I worked for Anna, and, thank God, I was able to 
keep her from serving. It was the least I could do, after all. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


191 


Vincenz paused again. He had told the faets plainly, without 
adding a comment; but the very bareness of the statement, given in 
that deeply tremulous voice, made it the more impressive. He said 
no word of the bitter desolation, the agony of self-reproach, which 
had been lived through, and which yet had to be lived down and 
thrust under in the battle for life on which he had then entered. A 
man cast in a sterner or a more callous mould would have more 
quickly shaken off that ghastly impression; for, after all, he had 
not overstepped the recognized code of honor which society had set 
up. But Vincenz was not of that iron hardness. His mind was too 
keenly sensitive, too intellectually refined, to be so easily quit of 
that haunting memory. The world’s code of honor shrank into 
nothing beside the accusation of his own conscience. No one, not 
even Anna, had ever guessed at the moments of discouragement and 
self -disgust which had threatened to overpower him. For a nature 
like his to suppress that gnawing remorse, and to rise to the emer- 
gency of the moment, was an effort almost heroic. He had no leisure 
for lamentation and sterile regrets, no opportunities for indulging 
in self-accusing tears; even sackcloth and ashes were luxuries which 
he could ill afford. Stern moralists might condemn him to do pen- 
ance ; but how of the poor penitent who has no money to buy the 
sackcloth, and no time to collect the ashes? 

Vincenz was forced to act at once, and to enter the lists in the 
vulgar battle for bare life. He had fought that battle bravely, and 
he had fought it alone; for Anna, successfully deceived as to the ex- 
tent of their property, had never attempted to contribute her share 
of labor. She continued to bully and adore her brother now as be- 
fore, never by a single word of reproach hinting at the happiness 
which she had lost through his fault. She knew he worked, but 
she did not know how hard he worked; and never to this day did 
she suspect how Vincenz used to sit with locked door, writing all 
night at his desk, so as to get through double work ; nor how often, 
when he declared he was going to dine with a friend, and she scolded 
him in her querulous fashion for his dissipation he would walk the 
streets alone, and come back looking rather pale; and all this only 
to lessen the butcher’s bill, which he knew they could not pay. 

Vincenz did not in any word refer to those past years; but some 
dim reflection of what must have been, could not fail to dawn in 
Gretchen’s mind. 

They had walked for some minutes in silence, when Vincenz, 
more in his ordinary voice, said, 

“ That is the whole of my story. I have not often indulged in a 
passion since then; a temper is a luxury which a poor man cannot 
afford to keep. That one fit of anger was an expensive thing,” and 
he laughed bitterly; “it cost my sister’s happiness, Conrad Perlen- 
berg’s life, and my own career.” 

“I am glad you told me,” said Gretchen, faltering. She could 
think of nothing else to say. “You must have been very unhap- 
py.” 

‘ ‘ Others must have been more unhappy, ” he said, quietly. ‘ ‘ Hav- 


192 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


ing spoiled three people’s lives, I have no right to expect any happi- 
ness in my own. I was fool enough to expect it once, and I have 
been punished for it.” 

The last words were but a thought spoken aloud, and Gretchen 
drooped her head without answering. 

They were in the valley by this time, and the blaze of the festive 
lights shone out close before them. But the story of the broken 
heart had left behind it a gloom not to be dispelled by lights or 
music, and the last few minutes of the walk were passed in un- 
broken silence. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

A SULTANA. 

“ Ich bin eiu Cavalier wie audere Cavaliere.”— Fausi. 

Princess Tryphosa is spending the evening in her apartment. 
On a low ottoman against the wall she reclines with half-closed eyes. 

The Recsulescus occupy the most magnificent suite of rooms of 
the monster hotel, and Princess Tryphosa inhabits the most magnifi- 
cent room of this apartment. To European ideas it would appear 
a comfortless room; but there is plenty of rich red velvet and lumi- 
nous gilding on all sides; and every touch of color in the room, 
every light and every shadow, seems to be there expressly in order 
to throw out in relief the figure of that woman on the ottoman. 

An ideal sultana, stepped straight out of the “Arabian Nights,” she 
leans motionless among her yieMing cushions. A rich and luxuri- 
ous indolence is expressed in every curve of her reclining figure. 
There is a narcotic influence about her very presence; it hangs round 
her in the atmosphere, as impalpable yet as irresistible as a fragrance 
of poppy-heads. She is a silent protest against activity — a silent 
sermon on the beauty of laziness. 

She is elaborately, almost gorgeously, dressed ; colored stones shine 
upon her neck and arms, which the hanging sleeves leave bare ; in 
her hair one red pomegranate-blossom droops, and on her cheek the 
black eyelashes throw a broad shadow. 

The lamps have been lighted already, and pour all around them a 
flood of soft yellow. The summer evenings are beginning to creep 
in, though the days are still hot and sunny. 

By the lamplight. Princess Tryphosa might be thought asleep ; 
but she is not. There is a rosary of amber beads in her hand, and 
it glides slowly, very slowly through her fingers. Beside her lies 
open one of Paul de Kock’s most doubtful novels. The novel is no 
doubt intended to enliven the pauses between the lengthy prayers, 
and the amber beads are as certainly meant to nullify any bad effect 
of the entertaining lecture. Paul de Kock entertained this Rou- 
manian princess very much, but not as he entertains other people. 
While she read him (and she read him very conscientiously) her face 
remained grave and her fancy untickled; she might have been be- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


193 


lieved utterly incapable of any sense of the ludicrous. That was 
entirely a mistake. Princess Tryphosa appreciated each joke, but 
she usually appreciated it a little time after she had laid down the 
novel. While the amber beads were gliding through her fingers, 
and her lips slowly moving in devotion, it often happened that the 
point of a joke she had been reading half an hour before began to 
dawn in her mind, and made an irresistible smile rise to her mov- 
ing lips. It was not at all unfrequent to hear Princess Tryphosa 
break into a low soft laugh, when the last half-hour had brought ab- 
solutely nothing calculated to raise merriment. 

This evening she is not alone. There is a piano in the room, and 
at the piano a swarthy-faced girl, her younger sister, is touching the 
chords with an unskilful hand. The music is the only thing which 
disturbs the Oriental character of the picture. A Moorish serenade, 
or the slumber-song of the “Africaine,” would have been in har- 
mony with the rest ; but these jingly variations upon "'la prih'e 
d'une merge ” arc an element foreign to the scene. Princess Try- 
phosa feels them to be tiresome ; at least she is fully aware that 
something is very tiresome, although she docs not attempt to analyze 
the precise cause. 

The variations had gone on for some time, when the princess drew 
out her watch and looked at it. It was a beautifully enamelled 
watch, but it was not going. 

“What o’clock is it, Milena?” she inquired, raising her voice. 

The ^‘pridre d’une merge'" was suspended for a moment, while 
Milena answered, “Half -past eight.” She put her hands on the 
chords again while she added, “You have asked the hour twice, 
Tryphosa; do you want to go to bed? Are you tired?” 

The variations went on for another half-page, and then Tryphosa’s 
voice was heard answering, 

“ No, I don’t want to go to bed. But I think I am rather tired,” 
she said, lower. 

The jingly pra5’^er rambled on, causing Milena’s two little brown 
hands to chase each other up and down the piano, and sometimes to 
jump clean over each other, like a couple of frisky brown mice at 
play. Some sound, like a heavy sigh, came from the ottoman by the 
wall. At the same time the door opened, and the black eyelashes 
were slowly raised. But it was not the person expected ; it was only 
a tiny figure running towards her. 

'^Mille pardons, madame," ejaculated the French nursery-maid be- 
hind, apologizing for the abnormal intrusion; '"mais U est d’une 
mecliancete ce soir! He would insist on saying good-night to you, 
madame, etje n'ai pu Vattraper, le petit coquin." 

The small runaway meanwhile had clambered on to the ottoman, 
and thrown himself upon his mother’s neck; while Princess Trypho- 
sa passively submitted to this strange fancy of her son’s. Perhaps 
she had not immediately realized the meaning of his appearance, for 
just as the indignant Fanchette had got him as far as the door, the 
princess called him back to her side. She drew him towards her, 
and looked for a minute into his face, then pressed him once, almost 

13 


194 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


with vehemence, to her breast; after which she sank back exhausted, 
dismissing Fanchette and her charge with a wave of her hand. 

It was not more than once a week that such a scene of affection 
took place between the mother and the son; and yet Tryphosa was 
more devoted than most Roumanian mothers. It had not been all 
at once that she had taken the little brown-faced baby to her heart, 
nor indeed that she had discovered herself to be possessed of a moth- 
er’s heart. Codran had almost kicked himself free of his swaddling- 
clothes by the time that Tryphosa had, somewhat to her surprise, 
awakened to the fact that she really was a mother like other women, 
and that she really loved her child as other women do. Now the 
curly-headed Codran was, for her, second to only one person in the 
world. In a moment of danger she might have had the devotion to 
sacrifice herself for her child, only that the chances are she would 
not have thought of it in time. 

The little brown mice were beginning again to scamper over the 
keys, but had to break off their gambols as the door opened for the 
second time. 

The Virgin’s prayer came to a final close at last; and Tryphosa, 
looking up, saw her sister rising from her seat, courtesy ing sedately 
to the entering visitor. 

The visitor was Istvan Tolnay. He bowed with excessive respect 
to Milena, and then, advancing towards the ottoman, took Princess 
Tryphosa’s out-stretched hand and raised it to his lips. The amber 
rosary and the French novel were both put aside. Princess Tryphosa 
had more absorbing interests at this moment than prayers or novels. 

Milena sat down demurely; her sister looked at her steadily for a 
few moments, as if meditating how to get rid of her. 

“I am glad you stopped playing, Milena,” she remarked now; 
‘ ‘ that air was so tiresome. ” 

“ Why did you not tell me before?” asked Milena. 

“ I did not think of it before.” 

“But you patronize music, princess,” said Istvan, taking a place 
on a chair not very far distant from the ottoman. 

The princess looked at him, but spoke to her sister. “Milena, 
will you say that the dulcetia is to be brought in?” 

When Milena had reached the door, which Baron Tolnay held 
open for her, the princess added, “ Georgin is to bring it.” 

Milena understood that she was not to return ; and she understood 
also quite well why she was not to return, although she walked out 
of the room as demurely as any straight-laced English damsel could 
have done. What Milena was, Tryphosa had been; and what Try- 
phosa was, Milena would be in time, barring her beauty, which this 
swarthy-faced girl could never hope to rival. Before she had mar- 
ried, Tryphosa had scarcely known what the outside of a French 
novel was like ; w^ould have considered herself insulted if a man had 
offered to shake hands with her; had never been allowed to smoke 
a cigarette, or to cross a street except under the maternal eye. And 
now— well, now she is alone with Istvan Tolnay. What is there 
passing between Istvan and Tryphosa? 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


195 


With the closing of the door the mask was dropped. Milena’s 
presence had of necessity made the first few phrases strictly conven- 
tional ; but it was not for the sake of conventional conversation that 
Istvan was here this evening. 

“I wrote to you,” said Tryphosa, not changing her position, only 
turning her head slowly till her eyes rested on him. “Did you not 
get my note?” 

“I am here in obedience to it,” said Istvan, sitting down again, 
this time on a chair much nearer to the ottoman. He looked at 
Tryphosa with unveiled admiration in his eyes; she lay still in her 
half -reclining position, while with one hand she drew towards her a 
scented box, and began turning a cigarette between her fingers. 

“I said eight o’clock.” 

“ I was not back at eight o’clock.” 

The princess went on turning her cigarette calmly. 

“Why do you always call me princess now? You used to call 
me Tryphosa last summer.” 

Istvan winced for an instant, but in the next he laughed gayly. 

“How could I know that you still allowed it this year? I shall 
only be too happy to call you Tryphosa again. ” 

She appeared not to be listening to his excuse ; the cigarette was 
done turning, but she held it unlighted in her fingers, while her eyes 
hung on his face as if she were maturing a thought in her mind. 

“ Where were you not back from at eight o’clock?” 

“ I took a long walk,” said Istvan, evasively. 

‘ ‘ But not alone, ” said Tryphosa, with a rapidity which in her was 
surprising. 

Istvan pulled meditatively at his mustache. Of course he had not 
been alone; but he had thought that it might have been pleasanter 
for all parties if the fact haxl remained unmentioned. He would 
have cheerfully told a dozen lies on the subject, if that could have 
done any good, for no squeamish sensitiveness as to veracity ever 
troubled Istvan Tolnay. If he candidly acknowledged the truth 
now, it was only because he recognized that denial would do no good. 

“Alone ?” He laughed. “No; I enjoy my own society best in 
that of other people. I made an expedition with Mr. Howard and 
the Mohr family. We had quite a pleasant day,” he added, frankly, 
not shrinking in the least before Tryphosa’s steady gaze. Moral 
cowardice did not happen to be his special phase of weakness. 

The cigarette was lit by this time, and a soft cloud of gray- white 
smoke hovered around Princess Tryphosa’s head. 

‘ ‘ Why should you fancy that I would not allow you to call me 
Tryphosa this year, if I allowed it you last year?” 

Istvan had hoped that that subject was dropped by this time. He 
began framing an answer, when a welcome interruption came in the 
shape of a cut-glass plate filled with dulcetia, which just now was 
carried in by the servant. Never before had he so thoroughly ap- 
preciated this Oriental custom. This break in the conversation 
would enable a fresh subject to be started at a very convenient 
juncture. 


19G 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


But he might have known Princess Tryphosa better by this time. 
The slow but unfailing tenacity of her mind was not to be disturbed 
by such an interruption. Three lengthy meals in the interval would 
not have been enough for that purpose; at the end of twenty-four 
hours she would have resumed the idea exactly at the place where 
she had dropped it. What effect could the appearance of the dul- 
cetia have upon such a mind as hers? 

When the glass plate was on the table and the door closed again, 
she spoke, 

“I want you to tell me, Istvan, what reason you have for suppos- 
ing that anything is different from what it was last year?” 

“Nothing is different,” said Istvan, leaning forward, and follow- 
ing only the impulse of the moment as he spoke. 

“If anything is different,” she said, letting a puff of smoke escape 
from her lips, “it is you who have made it different, and not I; it is 
your doing, and not mine. ” 

“Have I made it different?” 

Istvan leaned forward a little more. He did not say anything fur- 
ther at the moment, for he felt that the language of his eyes was the 
most appropriate language just then. He knew that his tongue 
spoke well, when he chose, but he knew that his eyes spoke better; 
it was always with them that he got over the most difficult turns in 
conversation. 

“ It is you, it is not I,” she said, without lowering her eyelids un- 
der his gaze. “ Istvan, you are not what you were last year. You 
do not come to me; you go on expeditions; you do not call me Tr}^- 
phosa. You loved jne last year — ” 

“And I love you this year,” said Istvan, taking her hand, which 
hung close to him. It was by far the most convenient answer to 
make, although it did not happen to be the true one. Besides being 
convenient, it was also pleasant. Though he did not love her this 
year, he had loved her last year ; and the memory of that impression 
was quite vivid enough to make him enjoy the sight of her beauty, 
as she reclined thus with her eyes on liis face. "There was a deep 
color glowing on her cheeks and burning on her lips; and this re- 
flection of an inward passion brooding deep down within her made 
lier surpassingly beautiful. In spite of many untoward circum- 
stances, this moment was to be counted among the pleasant mo- 
ments of his life. Though he did not love her this year, there was 
no objection to letting himself be loved by her. 

After his last words she let her eyes sink deep into his for a mo- 
ment; then slowly drawing away her hand, she calmly swallowed a 
spoonful of the dulcMia. Her next remark sounded irrelevant. It 
was always difficult to trace the embers of thought which might be 
smouldering in her mind. 

“Mademoiselle Mohr is very beautiful.” 

Istvan Tolnay started, and his eyes flashed fire. Tryphosa’s image 
faded, and Gretcheu’s arose in i'ts place. Quick as lightning his 
thoughts carried him to other scenes than this; to many a pleasant 
iiiomeut in the forest-walk to-day; to many a word and look ex- 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


197 


changed in tlie shadow of the heech-trees. Princess Tryphosa knew 
that that flush and that spark in his eye were not for her, even 
though he answered, 

“You are more beautiful, my dark queen!” 

“I think I am jealous of Mademoiselle Mohr,” said Tryphosa, 
slowly. 

She knew that she was much more beautiful than Gretchen, but 
she knew quite well what advantages the other had over her. 

“ It is no good being beautiful if I have lost your love.” 

“Have I not told you a hundred times that I love 5^ou?” asked 
Istvan, with a shade of impatience this time. A woman’s love was 
pleasant to him, but a woman’s lamentations were wearisome. 

. Oh yes, he had told her that he loved her a hundred times, in hot 
and passionate words, last year : these words he said now sounded 
so weak beside the memory of those others ; and Princess Try- 
phosa’s memory was unfortunately so tenacious. 

“ Istvan, after all the sacrifices t have made, you cannot have for- 
gotten your promises. You told me last year that I must wait. I 
have been patient, and I have waited. I have lived only on the 
thought of you, on the hope of being your wife some day. I have 
given up everything. I have risked my fair fame. I have deprived 
my child of its father — and all, all for you. Are you going to tell 
me that I have done it all in vain?” 

She uttered these words, so full of passion, slowly, pausing often, 
and giving full weight to each syllable. As she spoke, she sat up 
from her reclining posture ; the lamplight struck red and green 
flashes from the rubies and emeralds on her neck. 

“I have not repented one sacrifice of all those which I have 
made. You are not going to abandon me, now that I am free?” 

“Stop this talk, in God’s name!” cried Istvan, starting up from 
his chair with a fierce flush on his forehead. “Do you want to 
hunt me down? Do you want to drive me to distraction? A man’s 
patience can be tried too far, I tell you.” 

This woman’s lamentations were becoming decidedly ineonven- 
ient. They required to be cut short at any price. She trembled 
under the glance which he shot towards her; and, womanlike, she 
began to undo what she had been doing. 

For more than a minute she sat collecting her thoughts; then she 
spoke, 

“Forgive me, Istvan— I have been wrong; you must be right. 

I was wrong to doubt you.” 

Did not even this confidence touch him with pity, or awaken 
some faint qualm of conscience? JSTo; for there is a sort of cruelty 
which springs, not from the pleasure of seeing others suffer, but only 
from a sort of mental instability ; and in this new way Istvan could 
be cruel. The cruelty which springs from hardness of nature has 
more chance of being softened than that which comes from a light- 
ness of nature — for a hard nature need not necessarily be a shallow 
one; while here there was no possibility of stirring the depths, be- 
cause the depths themselves were awanting. Therefore Istvan was 


19S 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


capable of fiery, tliough not of lastingly tender passions, and the 
impression of the moment, though paramount while it lasted, was 
swept away by the impression of the next. A woman’s beauty was 
the only language which could make him feel an approach to pity. 
Passionate appeal and heart-rending prayers fell upon inditferent 
ears ; but sighs could move him — when they were breathed by glow- 
ing lips; and tears could touch him— falling from beautiful eyes. 

Tryphosa’s beauty had lost almost the last vestige of power over 
him, for he was surfeited with it. There was too much of it, and it 
was given too profusely; the quality was too rich, and the flavor too 
intense. Once he had wished for her love ardently; but now that 
she had freed herself and laid it at his feet, he felt his ardor strange- 
ly cooled. The coveted good lost half its value when thus pressed 
upon him. 

He had thought that the last vestige of that power was gone; but 
he would not have been Istvan Tolnay if the sight of that beautiful 
pleading figure had not calmed his anger, though it could not touch 
Ids pity. Her hands were clasped and raised towards him; diamond- 
drops glistened in her beseeching eyes, shining brighter than the fire 
of the jewels on her neck and arms. She was too beautiful to be 
resisted — not too eloquent, or too loving, or too blindly devoted, but 
simply too beautiful. Whether he loved her or not, and whether he 
meant to marry her or not, the thing most natural and most agree- 
able at this moment was to stoop and kiss her; and Istvan did it. 
There really was no other way of quieting her suspicions. It was 
not a necessity, of course — it was a luxury; but Istvan had not the 
heart to deny himself this luxury. Make it all the harder for her 
afterwards? Bah! Istvan never thought of afterwards; that was a 
W’ord which did not exist in his vocabulary. ‘‘Aprh moi, le deluge” 
he thought, quite gayly, as he allowed himself to be drawn down on 
the seat beside her. His arm was round her now, and his voice was 
pouring sweet promises into her ear. Even at this moment he could 
scarcely be described as hypocritical. He was only taking what he 
liked second best, because he could not get what he liked best ; he 
was only doing the thing most agreeable to be done at the moment. 
Was it his fault that he had found something else more agreeable a 
little time before, and might find it so again a little time after? 

“And you will stay with me, Istvan?” she murmured — and what 
a depth of tenderness shone in those velvety black eyes as she said 
it! Then, after a moment, “You will not go on any more of those 
expeditions in the mountains, where I cannot go?” 

“ Not if I can help it,” said Istvan, readily. “ I only do it for the 
sake of that poor old gentleman who is so anxious about discovering 
that place. ” 

Princess Tryphosa appeared to be ruminating upon this side of 
the question, but the result of her reflections was to make her re- 
peat a remark which she had made once previously, 

“Mademoiselle Mohr is very beautiful.” 

“As pretty as a fair-haired woman can ever be,” said Istvan, un- 
flinchingly, pressing his lips again to the soft hand he held. “ Could 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


199 


you suspect me of the bad taste of preferring her to you?’’ The 
effrontery with which he put the question was admirable of its 
kind. 

The princess did not answer ; she was too much in arrears for 
that. Her straight black brows were drawn together in deep 
thought. 

“And you will go on no more expeditions, if you can help it; 
and jou will come and see me often? for I must be your wife soon, 
Istvan.” 

She turned and looked straight at him; and though those deep 
eyes moved so slowly, the flush which shot over his face did not 
escape her sight. 

“We must wait, Tryphosa,” he said, in his softest voice. “ I told 
you that we must wait.” 

“ And you say that you prefer me to her,” she continued, slowly. 
“How long must we wait?” 

It was 1st van’s conviction that the princess would have to wait much 
longer than she imagined ; but he kept that conviction to himself. 

“ Oh, a little time longer; till autumn — till the season is over — till 
Gcmra Dmcului is found,” he said, half laughing. 

Gaura Draculuif” she repeated. Gaura Dracului ; it 

is my enemy. It takes you to the hills — it takes you from me — ” 

“ Only to return to your side,” murmured Istvan, heedlessly. 

“It takes you from me, while I must sit here and wait. “Wait!” 
she sighed, w^earily — “I have waited so long!” 

And then Istvan snatched recklessly at other arguments. To hear 
his fluent reasonings was almost to be convinced that a marriage was 
a thing which required several years for its completion. 

He left her at last, with promises, which came so easily from his 
lips, echoing still in her ears. 

Until the door was closed, he was the ardent lover. He had taken 
the red pomegranate blossom from her hair, and with an impassioned 
action he pressed it to his lips at parting. 

Then with his light step he ran down the staircase, and went out 
whistling a gay tune as he passed into the night air. 

It is not of this evening, it is of the morrow that he is thinking 
as he walks along. He must be at the hotel to-morrow to discuss 
the arrangements for one of those expeditions which, apparently, he 
cannot help joining — no doubt on account of the invalid gentleman 
whose views he is so anxious to further. 

What cares he for the woman from whom he has just parted? 
Just as much as for the pomegranate flower which lies on the road, 
to be trodden into the dust by the heel of the next passer-by. 

And Tryphosa sits where he has left her. There is no flower in 
the dead blackness of her hair. On her lips there still lingers the 
smile which his last kiss has left there. She is going over in thought 
each caress and each touch of his hand ; it is almost as if only now 
she were tasting the full delight of his presence. Slowly the smile 
dies away, for her thoughts have reached another and a darker point. 
Her breast rises and sinks in a bitterly weary sigh. 


200 


THE WATERS OE HERCULES. 


Some people say that Princess Tryphosa is stupid ; and yet Istvan 
Tolnay’s well-sounding protestations, his burning glances, have only 
half convinced her. Not all his smiles have smoothed the line of 
care from her forehead ; not even his kiss has lifted the weight of 
sadness from her heart. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE OATH OF HERCULES. 

“ Hither bend you, turn you hither, 

Eyes that blast and wings that wither. 

Cross the wandering Christian’s way. 

Lead him, ere the glimpse of day. 

Many a mile of maddening error 
Through the maze of night and terror.” 

Mooue : Song of the Evil Spirit of the Woods. 

The spirits with whom rustic superstition peopled Vaura Dracului 
must have laughed their fiendish laugh often and often in these days, 
while a bootless search was leading the explorers’ steps up hills and 
down dales, and over rocks and into gloomy forests, sometimes miles 
out of the right direction, sometimes across the very track which 
would have led them to the spot, once even within a few hundred 
paces of their goal; but never up to the brink of that bottomless 
chasm, which split the ground in a black and terrible gulf, and 
yawned in its secret spot, like an open grave — waiting and always 
waiting. In the early morning when the ivy hung wet with dew, 
and at sunset when the blood-red light touched it with slanting rays, 
and at golden mid-day and at black midnight, that grave in the forest 
yawned and waited, like a monster that hungers for prey. But what 
prey could this monster crave? 

Perhaps the fiendish spirits have laughed, as those blind people, 
who had eyes and who yet did not see, walked through the forest, 
searching for the three crosses cut in the bark. Those crosses were 
indeed cut in the bark — it was no sick man’s fancy ; and those blind 
people had been close to them and had failed to recognize the marks. 
If fiendish spirits have got fancies to be tickled, they certainly must 
have laughed often and gleefully at the idea of a person taking so 
much trouble in order to find his own grave. Knight or lady, youth 
or maiden, the spirits recked not which it was, as long as they got 
their rightful prey. 

Those few who knew the spot declared that it was haunted. When 
the wind blew in the beech-trees, howls, as of damned souls, mingled 
with the blast; the spirits danced round it at midnight, and wliite- 
robcd ghosts were said to flit from the depth, and sink down again, 
moaning at the first streak of dawn. 

But the few who knew the spot were very few indeed; and they 
were no more than half-savage peasants, ignorant goatherds, or wit- 
less stick-gatherers. Adalbert Mohr, whose interest in the search 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


201 


had at first been almost as keen as his daughter’s, had long sinee given 
up all hope of suecess. Day by day, and week by week, his strength 
was declining, his cheek was paling; and with the ebb of vital powers 
came also the ebb in his feeling towards that which had once been 
the passion of his life. Three months ago he had thought himself 
as near to convalescence as to the discovery of Qaura Dracului; 
now he told himself that he was as far from the one as from the 
other. 

It was in vain that his daughter attempted to rouse the interest 
slowly sinking. It might save him yet, she told herself at times, if 
Gaura Dracului were found. Something to tear him from this 
ever-growing despondency might yet arrest the harm. So, at least, 
argued the sanguine trustfulness of youth. But even the feverish 
interest ^yhich bound her own thoughts to the spot could wake no 
response in his. When she spoke of his old manuscript, he merely 
sighed; and when she dwelt on her hopes of finding the brigand’s 
treasure, and proved to him by logical deductions that these hopes 
were grounded, he smiled with a sort of melancholy cynicism. 

“ Is it not a pity to have all the ear-rings melted down?” he sug- 
gested one day. “Had you not better keep a pair for your own 
use, unless the shape is too far out of date? And have you quite 
settled on the bank where your fortune is to be lodged? You will 
not take less than six per cent., I suppose?” He laughed rather bit- 
terly. “ What an impostor you are, child, with your great clear 
eyes,^ your rosebud mouth, your sunbeam hair, and your logical de- 
ductions! If there could be such a thing as a strong-minded daisy, 
or a matter-of-fact blue-bell, I think you might be compared to that, 
Gretchen.” 

Gretchen made no answer; perhaps because she felt conscious 
that her interest in Gaura Dracului was not quite as strong-minded, 
nor quite as matter-of-fact, as she would fain have had her father 
suppose. 

Be the interest what it might, it had suffered no decrease. In face 
of all hope, she continued perseveringly to scour the mountains, and 
to devise what she called “ traps, ” in which she expected to catch 
the Bohemian’s secret, but which as yet had proved as many signal 
failures. The man’s innocence was proof against all her wiles. He 
would shake his head with respectful obstinacy; he regretted his in- 
ability to fulfil her wishes; he would do anything else to please the 
Friiulein, but the mere mention of Gaura Dracidui was enough to 
throw a spell of silence over him. Even the slightest reference to 
his vow he shunned with nervous dread, and all Gretchen’s entreaties 
had not yet succeeded in eliciting the history of that mysterious oath. 

“I am sure it is something interesting,” she said once, with a sigh 
of baffled curiosity. 

“ It is something terrible,” answered the Bohemian, shuddering. 

It was in the old street of the place, and beside the old stone 
fountain, that Gretchen had on this occasion accosted the Bohemian. 
She was on her way home with Kurt, and her hands were full of 
autumn crocuses which she had gathered in her walk. Mr. Howard 


202 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


with his fishing-rod, and Baron Tolnay with his dog, had joined tho 
group; for the Hercules fountain was a convenient spot of meeting; 
every one had to pass that way, and no one could pass unobserved. 

Through the first shade of dusk the stone Hercules loomed black 
and gigantic above them ; the waters splashed softly at his feet. 

“Really,” said Mr. Howard, “this will never do; this fellow’s su- 
perstition will be infecting us presently. We are all, as it is, men- 
tally deranged on the subject of this preposterous place. I, for one, 
am anticipating my dotage. What do you think I caught myself 
humming this morning in my bath? Why, the air of that ridicu- 
lous song about the Roman fellow who shoved a lady down the hole 
in the dark — a very ungentlemanlike thing to do, by-the-Tvay. ” 

“ They certainly all behaved very foolishly,” said Gretchen, lean- 
ing over the edge of the fountain, and looking at her reflection in 
the water — “everybody was always so illogical in those times. 
What a comfort it is that people have become more sensible and 
quiet now !” 

“ Sensible and quiet!” said Baron Tolnay, with a peculiar laugh. 
“Do you think so? Why, men are just the same in this age of 
reason as they were in the age of romance.” 

“The age of folly, you should call it. I am so glad it is past; 
that age would never have suited me.” 

“And I am sorry, for it would have suited me exactly.” 

“What part of it?” she said, laughing; “the costumes and the 
feasting, perhaps — but surely not the murder and the bloodshed?” 

“Yes, even the murder and the bloodshed. I could do what they 
did, if I had motive enough.” 

“ And what do you call motive enough?” she asked, absently. 

Tolnay was leaning beside her now : she saw the reflection of his 
face along side of her own in the water, and even in this imperfect 
mirror she could not fail to note the eagerness with wiiich his eyes 
were seeking hers. The look on his face answered her. “Love 
wmuld be my motive — love for you!” 

Tolnay was not accustomed to set a guard upon his eyes, nor were 
his glances generally barred by timidity; but even he had never be- 
fore dared to show his admiration so absolutely unveiled. Now, 
under cover of the presiding deity, he let fall for a moment the trans- 
parent mask of conventional restraint. Whose business, after all, 
was it to note the expression w'hich he wore at the foot of the Her- 
cules statue? or to analyze the nature of the gaze which he sent to 
the depth of the Hercules fountain? 

Gretchen had often before this dimly guessed that her conquest of 
Tolnay was complete; she had never been sure of it until now. It 
was the first time in all her experience of him that she had seen that 
earnest look on his face and that unwonted depth in his eyes. Her 
heart beat tumultuously: was it with triumph? or was it with fear? 

“Shall I answer your question?” said Istvan, softly, beside her; 
but she shook her head, and all at once opening her fingers, she 
dropped the crocuses into the water, where they danced gayly on the 
surface, drawing a floating veil over the two faces below. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


203 


“Murder and bloodshed?” said Mr. Howard, breaking into the 
conversation, which had sunk to whispers by this time. “Who is 
standing up for murder and bloodshed? I maintain that that Roman 
fellow behaved disgracefully to Mrs. — whatever her name was.” 

“ Why, Mr. Howard,” said Gretchen, turning her back to the 
statue — for the waters of Hercules had shown her more this even- 
ing than she cared to see — “it was only yesterday you told me that 
you did not believe a word of the legend from beginning to end !” 

“Of course I don’t,” said Mr. Howard. “If you got to the bot- 
tom of the matter, you would probably find that some tipsy wood- 
cutter broke his neck over a pitfall in the dark; and because the 
branches creak round the spot, the people say that it is haunted.” 

“ They say more than that,” ventured the Bohemian, who till now 
had stood by in respectful silence. 

“More nonsense, you mean?” asked Mr. Howard, with a sort of 
unwilling curiosity. 

“They say that the evil spirits who live in the abyss hunger after 
human lives. Ever since that innocent woman found her death 
there, the god of the valley has granted them a victim once in every 
hundred years. Some other woman or man must be sacrificed to 
Qaura Dracului in every century. There is no escape for those 
who are marked; Hercules has sworn it on his club!” 

The Bohemian’s voice had sunk to an almost inaudible whisper. 
He raised his blue eyes in shy terror to the stone figure above, as 
though diffident of speaking of the valley-god in his “ sacred” pres- 
ence. 

It is an established fact that anything in the shape of a ghost- 
story sounds more real in the dusk than in the dark. There was 
not one of the four listeners present who could have pleaded free 
from a certain thrill of fluttering perturbation. 

The mountain-side had grown gloomy by this time; the street was 
deserted ; the Hercules fountain alone filled the silence with its gen- 
tle splash. Mr. Howard was the first to speak. 

“ Come!” he cried, giving himself a shake, as though to get rid of 
some intangible shadow of superstition — “come, this is really irre- 
sistible ! Here is a fellow who is not superstitious, but who tells us, 
with a face as long as a yard-measure and as white as paper, that 
somebody must fall down a black hole every hundred years, whether 
he wills it or no.” 

“ I have only repeated what is the belief among the Roumanians,” 
said the Bohemian, somewhat loftily. “ I did not say that I believed 
it.” 

“But you looked most remarkably as if you did a minute ago. 
You have not been eye-witness to one of these century immolations, 
have you?” 

“No,” stammered the man, turning pale as ashes. “I— I— have 
— not — seen it.” 

“ You have heard it then, or dreamed it, ’’said Mr. Howard, plant- 
ing himself straight before the Bohemian. “Come, let us go on to 
the end, since we are at it.” 


204 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


But the Bohemian had no idea of going on to the end. For one 
moment he gazed at his questioner in helpless misery, then threw a 
wild glance around him, and turning suddenly, fairly took to his 
heels up the street, leaving the party to stare at each other’s faces, 
and invent whatever solutions they could find to the riddle of his 
behavior. 

These sort of scenes 'were not calculated to cool curiosity; and 
despite the failures, Gretchen’s courage remained unabated. Did 
not the failures themselves bring pleasures in their train? And 
though they never came to Gaura Dracului, did they not come to 
many spots beautiful in their wild solitude, untrodden perhaps for 
centuries, or perchance known only to the fleet chamois or the soar- 
ing eagle? 

Nor was the excitement of danger a-wanting to make the enjoy- 
ment completCj for there were both the bears and the robbers to be 
afraid of. To be sure, the bears were said to be very shy in sum- 
mer, and it had not yet been proved beyond doubt that the robbers 
existed. But each of these causes was enough to awaken some 
momentary flutters, and a gentle undercurrent of trepidation, not 
wholly unpleasant; and both the facts together moved Herr Mohr 
to insist that fire-arms should be taken for the protection of the 
party. The Bohemian, when called upon, produced a rusty gun, 
which had once been the property of his grandfather. He confessed 
to being rather surprised at the anxiety which they displayed for 
their lives; he did not see '(^'hy people with clear consciences 
should require the protection of fire-arms; but he had no objection 
to humoring them by taking the gun. As to whether it would go 
off at the right moment, he expressed himself hopeful, though by no 
means sanguine. The question still remained unsolved, for neither 
robber nor bear had put himself within range of the Bohemian’s 
gun. And yet there were not wanting evidences of at least the 
bear’s existence. Passing one day through a narrow ravine, they 
had been startled by a shower of stones rattling dowm from the 
height. “That is a bear above us,” said the Bohemian, serenely. 
A little later they had come upon the bleached skeleton of a horse, 
picked to the very bone. “ It was eaten by a bear last winter,” ex- 
plained their guide, in the most matter-of-fact way. 

No member of the party enjoyed the air, the liberty, the exhilara- 
tion of these mountain excursions as keenly as Dr. Komers. By 
contrast to his town life, his murky office, and his desk drudgery, 
the mountains were to him another world. He felt as though he 
were laying in a stock of sunshine and hill breezes, enough to last 
him for a lifetime. It was delightful to feel the physical strength 
w'hich had so long lain dormant — to enjoy the powders which he 
scarcel^r knew. The works of the great machinery w'cre coming 
into action at last. 

Ascelinde could not imagine what kept Dr. Komers in the Her- 
cules valley ; and though, since the collapse of Draskocs, she never 
could be the same woman again, and had not spirit enough remain- 
ing to be actively unfriendly, still she thought it unfeeling of Dr. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


205 


Komers to keep painful recollections alive by his presence. Since 
there was no more family cause, there could be no more need for a 
family lawy^er. 

Dr. Komers himself did not quite know why ho was staying here 
so long, although he gave himself a great many reasons for doing 
so. What good could come from following Gretchen about, since 
ho had sworn to himself that he would woo her no more, and since 
he meant to hold to what he had sworn? He was strong enough.to 
keep his oath, but not quite strong enough to put the matter aside 
once for all, as irrevocably fixed. In fact, during these days poor 
Vincenz began to suspect that he was not an iron character. 

The sight of Tolnay by Gretchen’s side was a continual irritant, 
and it did much to darken the sunshine and poison the breeze. 
Since Gretchen could not belong to him, of course she must belong 
to some Other man. But, he told himself, that other man ought not 
to be Istvan Tolnay. It should be an individual of peculiar excel- 
lence, and of a character more elevated than the character of any 
person he had ever yet met. If such a man were to be found, V in- 
cenz felt confident that he could with calmness, almost with resig- 
nation, and perhaps a fatherly blessing on his lips, join their two 
hands together. He felt quite amicably disposed towards this vague 
man of tlie future; but, strangely enough, whenever the vague man 
threatened to become distinct, the amicable feeling turned into ve- 
hement dislike. He passed all Gretchen’s acquaintances in review, 
and rejected them all in turn. The future man w'as only bearable 
as long as his outline remained undefined; and perhaps it was be- 
cause Istvan Tolnay’s personality was so very clearly defined, both 
mentally and physically, that Vincenz disliked him so much. He 
not only disliked, he also mistrusted him. This in itself was an 
excellent reason for not leaving the Hercules valley. It was his 
misfortune that he had so many excellent reasons, and not one that 
could stand on its own legs. Each leaned a little against the other 
for support, and they ended by all knocking each other down. 

It was on a clear August day that Vincenz again had taken his 
post of guardian and protector. The party had followed the course 
of the Djernis until they had come to a ruined watch-house, which 
marked the borders of Roumania on this side. 

The season had reached its climax, and had passed it. Though 
the change was scarcely noticeable, yet the short-lived summer 
glory of the Hercules Baths was slowly declining. Autumn, with 
its tints, was stealing over the world, “with his gold hand gilding 
the falling leaf.” The mornings were keen and the evenings fresh 
already. The green brambles in the hedges were turning black; 
and along the path beside the Djernis, and on the rocks by the 
mountain -foot, and over the ruin of the old watch-tower by the 
border, the wild grapes hung in bunches, slowly ripening in the 
sun. 

Gretchen, with Tolnay by her side, had been gathering the tiny 
fruit, and now made a step towards a luxuriant cluster which hung 
from the branch of a neighboring tree. 


20G 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ Stop, Frilulein!” said the Bohemian, running to her side— “stop, 
for Heaven’s sake! You dare not go a step farther than this!” 

Gretchen stood still in alarm, and looked around to se6 what was 
the danger threatening; but there was nothing visible except a heap 
of dead branches across the path. 

“And these withered leaves are to bar my passage?” she asked, 
touching them contemptuously with her foot. 

‘ ‘ Though they be but leaves, they mark the frontier, Fraulein ; 
and were we to be found a dozen steps beyond the frontier, we 
should be instantly arrested and taken off to the nearest town.” 

“But what for, in the name of all that is illogical?” 

‘ ‘ I cannot say that I know what for, Fraulein ; perhaps they do 
not know it themselves. They are always suspicious, those Rouma- 
nians, and think it more natural that you should be doing harm 
than not.” 

“The Roumanian grapes lOok twice as good as the Hungarian 
ones,” said Gretchen, casting a longing glance at the purple berries 
which hung so temptingly just out of her reach. “ Forbidden fruit 
are always the sweetest, you know.” 

“ I have never heard that, Fraulein; and, begging your pardon, 
I do not think it can be true : we can never enjoy anything if our 
conscience be not clear.” 

“Well, I could make a very comfortable meal upon forbidden 
fruit, I think,” said Tolnay; “much more enjoyable than any legit- 
imately obtained pineapples or nectarines — at least to my thinking; 
but it is all a matter of taste.” 

“An acquired taste, perhaps?” put in Gretchen, looking at him 
over her shoulder. 

“Exactly — caviare to such simple souls hampered by a tender 
conscience;” and the ironically compassionate glance which accom- 
panied the words rested not only on the Bohemian, but on Komers 
as well. 

“I don’t like caviare,” said Gretchen — “unwholesome, oily stuff, 
but I should like to take just one step into Roumania, and to gather 
one bunch of Roumanian grapes.” 

“ Come, then, let us defy the laws of the country!” said Tolnay, 
with his irresistible smile, and offering his arm to help her over the 
momentous heap of branches— “ let us taste of the forbidden fruit 
together.” 

And partly out of contempt for such illogical restrictions, partly 
out of that spirit of coquetry which in her seemed always to be 
called forth by Istvan Tolnay’s presence, Gretchen accepted his 
arm, and together they passed the line of demarcation; while, with 
gloomy frowning brow, Vincenz watched them disappear round a 
corner. 

All the evil that was in her nature seemed ever ready to be roused 
at Tolnay’s will. To watch her with that man at her side w^as almost 
to believe her the cold and heartless coquette, the mercenary fort- 
une-hunter, which Anna declared her to be. “And that day,” 
thought Vincenz— “ that day when we spoke together in the gorge, 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


207 


I found it so easy to believe that she was a true woman, with a 
heart that could love, even if it cannot love me. Ah, what a pity is 
the change!” 

‘ ‘ Ah, what a pity is the change 1” Gretchen’s own thoughts were 
saying at that very moment. “ That day in the gorge he was like 
Hercules come down from his pedestal to save me; down here to- 
day he is tiresome and awkward. What a pity is the change!” 

This thought was underlying all her most flippant speeches, all 
her most seductive smiles; and perhaps, too, this thought made her 
find out that forbidden fruits are only sweet in anticipation, and 
that even Roumanian grapes can be sour. But nothing of this ap- 
peared on the surface, and she came back laughing and talking as 
lightly as before. 

“ Well, we have not been arrested, you see,” she said, addressing 
the others. 

“ And by what shadow of right should you have been arrested?” 
said Mr. Howard. “There must be justice even in Roumania.” 

The Bohemian’s expression seemed to say that justice was much 
too good a thing to be found in such a country. 

“By what right, I do not know; but that they do it, I know. It 
is sometimes much easier to walk over the Roumanian frontier than 
to walk back again. Some years ago there was a gentleman here 
who had passed the border without knowing it. He was seized and 
locked up as a political spy; and afterwards they forgot all about 
letting him out again, and if his relations had not found him out at 
the end of a month, he might be there still.” 

“A nice state of affairs,” cried Mr. Howard, with rising wrath. 
“ I should just like to see them try to lock up a free British subject!” 
And at the bare idea Mr. Howard grew scarlet. 

“They are an ignorant people,” said the Bohemian, with a sort 
of contemptuous apology for Roumania in general. “But they will 
not lock you up if you show them your papers.” 

“What sort of papers?” demanded the irate Englishman, who 
felt inclined to plunge into Roumania, all paperless as he was, mere- 
ly because he was warned against so doing. 

“Well, just papers,” said the Bohemian, serenely. “I do not 
think it matters much what they are ; the more of them you have, 
the better. At home, in Bohemia, we need no such precautions ; but 
in this strange land — ” 

“He means a passport,” put in Tolnay. 

“I always looked upon passports as an exploded superstition,” 
remarked Kurt. 

“ So they should be,” went on Mr. Howard ; “but people in this 
country cling to superstitions, it seems. If you want to travel slow- 
ly, travel with a passport by all means. It is the best recipe I know 
for being detained at every turn and regarded as a suspicious indi- 
vidual. A passport is the most suspicious-looking article possible 
nowadays. Last year I was travelling. I w'as told I must have a 
passport ; naturally I declined. What was the result? At the French 
frontier I was asked for it, and distinctly informed my questioner 


208 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


that I had none. A terrif5dug Frenchman, with a black beard and 
rolling eyes, glared at me ferociously for a minute, then roared, in a 
voice of thunder, ‘ Comment, monsieur, pas de passeport ! Alors 
PASSEZ, monsieur V and I passed, very comfortably indeed. ” 

“But it seems that our friends over there would say, ' Restez, 
monsieur, ’ ” laughed Kurt. 

“ I have got a passport,’' remarked Dr, Komers, who till now had 
been following his own thoughts, but who had caught the word 
under discussion. 

“Really?” responded Tolnay, in that tone of half mockery which 
he always used in addressing the lawyer. “How do you come by 
the obsolete article ? Do you keep it as a souvenir of extinct cus- 
toms ?” 

“No, it is quite new — it was drawn out a few weeks ago and 
Vincenz took out his pocket-book and began to unfold it. 

“Ah, what admirable prudence ! None of us have had such care 
of our persons.” 

Vincenz continued to unfold his pocket-book, perfectly unper- 
turbed by Baron Tolnay’s pin-pricks. These pin-pricks were Istvan’s 
greatest pleasure. He delighted in displaying his youthfulness un- 
der the eyes of the elder man, who would fain be his rival. That the 
lawyer could ever succeed in being his rival, was an idea far too pre- 
posterous to have occurred to Istvan’s mind. 

“I got the passport to satisfy my sister,” said Vincenz, calmly, 
while he smoothed out the rustling document. ‘ ‘ She believed that 
without it I Avas exposing myself to innumerable dangers. ” 

Tolnay threw a glance of disparagement at the battered leathei* 
pocket-book from which the passport had issued. 

“Does not such a magnificent document deserve a more worthy 
resting-place ?” 

“I prize this pocket-book above everything else in the world,” 
said Vincenz, Avith sudden fire. “It is dearer to me than the most 
sacred relic. ” He spoke only on a thoughtless impulse, but Tolnay 
had caught the tone. 

Quick as lightning his glance shot toAvards Gretchen. A faint 
flush was on her cheek : she kneAv Avell enough that this old pocket- 
book was the same that she had once stitched together for Dr. Ko- 
mers. 

Of this Istvan Tolnay knew nothing. And yet it was at this mo- 
ment, while he stood beside the ruined watch-tower, and looked from 
one face to the other, that there was sown in Istvan’s soul the first 
frail seed of a plant which was to bear bitter fruit. 


THE WATEES OP HERCULES. 


209 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 

A MODERN MARTYR. 

“ Wenn dnd en steilen Berg ersteigst 
Wirst clu betrachtlich achzen.”— Heinr. 

Like a fire which has smouldered so low as to have almost reached 
extinction, and of a sudden leaps into new flame, so did the half -for- 
gotten robber panic reaw’aken with tenfold strength, when one even- 
ing it became known that the Bohemian’s milk -girl had been as- 
saulted. 

A man had burst through the bushes, while she was alone on the 
pathway; had first torn the coin necklace from her throat, and flung 
it contemptuously to the ground, and had then wrenched her basket 
from her, and seizing on the fresh cheeses which it held, had disap- 
peared again in the forest. 

A robber who preferred milk-cheeses to gold coins could not 'be- 
long to the most dangerous specimens of his kind; but by the time 
the story had made the round of the place, he had not only grown, 
but multiplied; and there seemed cause enough for the patrols to 
W'alk about with fixed bayonets, challenging every shadow, and tak- 
ing each other into custody, in the name of the king. 

“I do not see any logical grounds for giving up our plan,” said 
Gretchen, on the evening of the event, while the red-hot story was 
being discussed beside the fountain. 

There had been a longer expedition than usual planned for the 
next day: they had intended to visit a cave among the mountains, 
and now the party was weighing the advisability of maintaining or 
relinquishing the idea. 

The Bohemian, being consulted as to the authenticity of the rob- 
ber, calmly raised his shoulders. The girl was a Roumanian, he re- 
marked, and therefore, of course, more inclined to falsehood than to 
truth. The account she gave was confused; superstitious terrors 
had bewildered her faculties. At the first appearance of the man, 
she had naturally jumped to the conclusion that this was the wicked 
spirit Miasanoptie, under whose evil bane falls every Roumanian 
who is foolish enough to stand at the crossing of two roads while 
the sun is setting. “And,” added the Bohemian, with scornful 
pity, “the stupid girl maintains that it is the Tuesday which has 
brought her bad luck; for— would you believe it?— these people here 
call the Tuesday a bad day: they will neither begin nor finish any- 
thing on a Tuesday.” 

“But have you not got something of that sort in Bohemia too?” 
Gretchen ventured to suggest. 

14 


210 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“Why, Friday is our unlucky day,” said the Bohemrian, with 
wondering simplicity; “it is only such ignorant people as these who 
could make Tuesday the bad day.” 

“ Why, then Bohemians can be superstitious too?” 

The Bohemian’s blue eyes were fixed upon her with a sort of sor- 
rowful reproach. 

“That is not a superstition, Fraulein; that is a belief.” 

“Well; but to return to the robbers,” said Gretchen, unwilling to 
waste time upon such a nice definition as Bohemian versus Rouma- 
nian superstition. “Do you believe there is any danger? Should 
you be afraid to go to the hills alone?” 

Again the blue eyes gazed at her in mild surprise. 

“lam afraid of no man, Fraulein, when my conscience is clear.” 

“And if we were to meet these robbers, what would they do to 
us?” 

“Take away our money, Fraulein.” 

“And if we had no money?” 

‘ ‘ Then perhaps cut our throats, ” said the Bohemian in an apolo- 
getic tone, as if excusing himself for mentioning such an unpleasant 
subject before ladies. 

Gretchen’s face fell a little. 

“Then must we give up our expedition?” 

“Oh no,” said the Bohemian, with a re-assuring smile: “there is 
no need to give it up, if our consciences are clear. For, after all, 
death must come sooner or later; and if our hour has struck, we 
cannot escape from it. ” 

“ Ye — es,” said Gretchen, reflectively. 

This was a salutary but not a particularly cheerful view of the 
case. 

“Oh, our consciences are all as clear as crystal,” said Baron 
Tolnay, breaking into the conversation with a laugh. “Let us go 
to the cave, by all means.” 

And so finally it was decided; the time for the start fixed, and the 
Bohemian dismissed. 

All this time Princess Tryphosa had stood a silent member of the 
group. She had made no comment whatever upon the plans ; but 
presently, when Mr. Howard left the party, saying, “I am going to 
get my wading-boots and have another cast in the river,” the little 
group was electrified by the announcement from Tryphosa’s lips: 

“lam going too.” 

There was a general start and a few broken exclamations. Even 
Kurt’s coolness was troubled for a moment. Baron Tolnay was the 
first to recover his presence of mind. 

“But you have got no wading-boots, princess.” 

The princess stared at him intensely. She had to reconcile the 
idea of the wading-boots with the other idea which was present in 
her mind, and it took her some time to do it. 

Istvan attempted to assist the process of thought. , 

“You want to go to the river, princess?” ' 

“No; I want to go with you to the cave.” 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


211 


They had talked of the dry weather, of the departing visitors, of 
the principal cures of the season since then. Princess Tryphosa 
was still at the cave. 

Here was a fresh electrical shock. Nobody believed it at first. 
More than one member of the party changed color. Then there fol- 
lowed a pause, and a consciousness of general constraint; for there 
was no one present who could not easily guess what had moved the 
princess to this stupendous resolution. 

The princess herself neither changed color nor expression. She 
sat through it all wdth unmoved stolidity. She waited with inex- 
haustible patience until the small waves of wonder, of incredulity, 
of only half - suppressed amusement had broken over her, as the 
waves of the sea break over a massive and immovable rock. 

A desperate question was ventured at last by Gretchen. 

“ Why are you going?” 

After a minute of intense thought, the princess gave utterance to 
the blackest lie of which she had ever been guilty in her life: 

“ I am fond of caves.” 

Then Baron Tolnay made an effort, 

“It is more than three hours’ walk, princess.” 

‘ ‘ I know — but I am going. ” 

“The way is tremendously rough.” 

“I know — but I am going.” 

Only another useless wave. It passed over, leaving no mark on 
the rock. The resolution had not been an impulse; Princess Try- 
phosa had no impulses. Every thought with her required to be 
carefully planted and slowly ripened until it was perfect. It had 
taken days, even weeks, before she had confessed to herself freely 
that Istvan Tolnay Avas deserting her for the sake of the German 
girl. 

That point once established, she recognized the necessity of doing 
something. After several more days of reflection, she resolved what 
that something was to be. The principal cause of her uneasiness 
was those mountain expeditions, so fatally conducive to tete-d-teies. 
Having failed to keep Istvan from them, she had at last matured 
the tremendous idea of joining them herself. 

Tolnay’s first effort was his last. The princess’s resolutions might 
take long to ripen; but, once ripened, no power on earth was capa- 
ble of balking them. Tolnay knew the woman too well — too fatal- 
ly well — not to be aware of this. After all, it mattered nothing. 
It was to be regarded merely as an inconvenience — merely as one 
more stone to be kicked out of his path. Her whole love was an 
inconvenience ; and yet it was characteristic of Istvan that, even 
when pressed hardest between his new passion and the troublesome 
consequences of his old one, the wish never once occurred to him 
that Tryphosa’s love should die a natural death, and thus release 
him. It was only the inconvenient expression of that love to W'hich 
he objected, not the love itself. 

Her announced resolution provoked him ; it scarcely disturbed 
him, and he knew that it should not balk him. Living, as he did. 


212 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


only in the excitement of his present passion, everything outside it 
dwindled in importance. lie was madly in love, and he did not 
care who saw it. Princess Tryphosa herself must see it sooner or 
later. Let her see it sooner, then, if she be fool enough to buy the 
information at the cost of so much personal discomfort. 

The others fancied that when the moment of ascent came, and 
Tryphosa found herself in face of the reality, her resolution would 
fail. Istvan Tolnay knew better. 

This woman hated action and despised exercise; she was terrified 
of the robbers, she suffered from giddiness and loss of breath ; but 
there Tvas a feeling in her that was stronger than her hatred of action 
and her contempt of exercise, stronger than her dread of bodily dis- 
comfort, stronger than her fear of the robbers: it was her love for 
Istvan Tolnay. 

And so, to the wonder of the world, it came to pass that Princess 
Tryphosa, who was used to spend her day on a soft-cushioned couch, 
lying motionless for hours at a time ; Princess Tryphosa, whose feet 
were used to nothing harder than embroidered Turkish slippers ; 
who had never in her life seen the inside of a forest, nor walked up 
anything steeper than the staircase of a premier — it came to pass 
that this marvel of luxurious indolence actually put her high-born 
feet to the base use of mountain climbing. 

It may sound a small thing to English cars; but many a grander 
sacrifice, many a torture endured, many a bloody martyrdom, has 
been less heroic. It is necessary to have watched a Roumanian 
woman dragging herself through the laziness of her every-day life 
before such a heroism can be measured. 

And Princess Tryphosa had the agony to see that it was all in 
vain. Her immolation was disregarded, her martyrdom was un- 
crowned; there was no aureole for her head, no palm for her hand. 
Far on in front she could see Istvan by Gretchen’s side, giving to the 
light-footed Gretchen the assistance of which she, the heavy-stepping 
Tryphosa, stood so much in need. She had torn her long silk dress ; 
she had Avalked through the soles of her shoes; her lace was hang- 
ing in shreds ; the amber rosary which she carried in her pocket had 
snapped its cord, while the yellow beads went bounding down the 
hill; she had struggled and panted and gasped, battling bravely 
through it all, and uttering no complaint. But at last, when stand- 
ing breathless and flushed on the top of a steep path, she looked on, 
and perceived that those figures in advance had vanished, and found 
that she herself was abandoned by all save the good-natured Kurt, 
who had cheered on her passage by an occasional display of his very 
best French— now, at last, her strong spirit seemed in danger of 
breaking. 

Collapsing to a limp heap of lilac silk, she sank dovm at the foot 
of a beech-tree, and slowly taking out a costly lace handkerchief, slie 
deliberately burst into tears. 

What did Kurt do? Did he attempt to dry her beautiful eyes, 
as some men would have done? Was he terrified at the hysterical 
storm of feminine emotion, as some other sort of men might have been? 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


213 


^ Neither of the two. Kurt put one hand into his pocket, twirled 
his stick with the other, and, looking down at the sobbing woman, 
said in an encouraging tone, 

“ Vleurez, madame ; cela vous soulagera !” 

The effect might have been expected. Tryphosa, though she was 
a slow woman, was yet a woman, and, being encouraged to weep, 
she dried her tears with something that almost approached to 
alacrity. 

“Have we lost our way?” she asked. 

Kurt did not think they had lost their way yet, but believed it not 
at all improbable that they should lose it presently, considering that 
the others were out of sight, and that he himself had never been 
in this part of the forest before. He hinted at the advisability of 
advancing. 

“Not yet,” said the princess. “I must rest a little longer, and I 
must think.” 

Thinking was much easier when sitting at the foot of a tree than 
when scrambling up a slippery path. 

“Very well,” said Kurt. 

The princess began to think. She was reviewing her position. 
Her tactics had been a failure. She had hoped that her presence 
would be a check upon Tolnay, and she had found out that it was 
not. Nor would it ever be, for these three hours up the hill had 
shown her how wildly and how recklessly Istvan was in love. Her 
first effort had failed; she must make another, but in another direc- 
tion. That was what she required to think about. 

“ Does your sister always walk as fast as this ?” she inquired. 

“ Usually. I am always telling her to take things easily, but she 
docs not listen to me. She likes preaching better than being 
preached to ; and when I hit at her obstinacy, she hits at my expen- 
sive habits.” 

The princess had raised her eyes as she put her question, and they 
still remained fixed on Kurt’s face. It was not as if she were look- 
ing at him : it was only as if she had forgotten to remove her eyes 
while she pursued her meditations. Kurt did not find that fixed 
gaze to be in the least degree embarrassing. 

“She does not listen to you? Does she ever listen to anybody?” 

“Not often, I admit; she has got such a terribly hard head, you 
see, and is so tremendously logical and strong-minded. I believe she 
fancies herself sent into the w'orld as a sort of missionary to the 
great tribe of the illogical; what she would like best would be to 
distribute logic and justice all round; she says they are synony- 
mous.” 

“ Thank you; but please do not speak so fast.” 

The princess was silent, carefully dissecting the various elements 
of thought which were contained in Kurt’s phrase. 

Kurt was silent also ; he found the princess puzzling, and he did 
not know what he was being thanked for. 

Presently he found the princess more puzzling still, when after a 
little silence she said, 


214 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ Then you think that she would understand justice?” 

“ I think she would box my ears if I told her she did not,” said 
Kurt, cheerfully; and then he proposed that they should go on. 

“Yes; I am fond of caves,” said the poor princess, in a rather 
woe-begone tone, as with the help of his arm she struggled to her 
feet and resumed the battle with the hill, 

“Look! my shoes are all torn, and my foot is bleeding,” she had 
said to Kurt, merely as though stating a fact, not asking for any 
compassion ; for after that one burst of tears at the foot of the beech- 
tree, she had made no more complaint. Her shoes were in tatters 
indeed, and the hem of her dress was in a fringe; but she dragged 
herself along, clinging to Kurt’s arm, and bearing her sufferings in 
silent agony. There was something of an almost divine heroism 
about this heavily beautiful Koumanian princess. 

When they had reached the top of the next steep slope, her face 
was flushed to a deep purple, and her fourth silk flounce had given 
way; and yet upon her breathlessly parted lips there was a smile, 
for she had thought out the situation. The case was intricate, and 
her means well-nigh exhausted. Tears, supplications, and re- 
proaches had all failed in reviving Istvan’s extinguished love. It 
is true that jealousy still remained; and Tryphosa had reflected upon 
the advisability of awakening Istvan’s jealousy — had carefully con- 
sidered the idea, had weighed it, and rejected it. Such petty ma- 
nceuvrings did not suit the princess. There were none of those little 
weaknesses about her, and no taint of meanness. Her mind had 
been mapped out on a larger scale. She was going to use means 
more simple and more courageous— perhaps also more desperate. 
Having failed to work upon the man, she was going to try and work 
upon the woman. 

“ Where can they have all gone to?” asked the princess, staring 
all round her and above her and below her in open-mouthed won- 
der; for they were standing on a tiny platform with no apparent 
egress. 

Below there was a glimpse of rocky mountain-tops, surging away 
like a sea of petrified waves, to break on the horizon. Around the 
spot on which they stood the ground was covered with berberry- 
bushes, where the ripe berries hung in bunches, like tassels of shaded 
red. Straight in front of them stood a wall of rock, and at the foot 
a low opening, half masked by scraggy brushwood. 

“Halloo!” said Kurt; “this is the cave. I hear their voices in 
there. Nothing for it now but to follow them.” 

The princess leaned a little more heavily on his arm, and gasped — 

“Must I go into that hole?” 

“You are fond of caves, you know, princess.” 

She was a courageous woman, though she was so unwieldy. She 
had gone through so much this day that really one discomfort more 
or less could not matter much. Her cup of bitterness might as well 
be quite full as half full. Princess Tryphosa was not a woman to 
do things by halves. She had walked over thorns and stones — she 
might as well walk into a damp cave. 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


2l0 


“Yes; I am fond of caves,” she said, rather faintly; and, rallying 
her resolution for the crowning effort, she went forward without an- 
other murmur, trailing her silk dress after her, carrying 'with her a 
perfume of distilled roses and a general air of mock Parisian ele- 
gance. 

Never before had that wall of rock looked down upon anything 
as beautiful as her face or as incongruous as her costume. The rock 
stared down in blank and frigid surprise as the last tip of her col- 
ored train glided vanishing into the cave like the tail of a glittering 
serpent. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

BY TORCHLIGHT. 

“ Leicht ist die Hulle die den Hass bedeckt.”— Auffenbeeq. 

Though the hole in the rock was so low that mountain-gnomes 
alone could have entered it upright, yet it proved to be the portal 
of a space more suited to giants than to dwarfs. 

As the party stood together in the cave they looked no more than 
a tiny group, and the flames of their flrwood torches were hut little 
spots of light, lost in the vast blackness around. Their progress was 
not easy, for the ground was slippery with damp, and irregularly 
strown with large round stones. Above their heads the vaulted 
ceiling rose away out of the circle of light; hollows and undefined 
niches blackened vaguely on all sides. But where the ceiling low- 
ered, it was of a snowy glistening white, a fine fretwork of delicate 
points hanging downward, like icicles turned into stone. The air 
was chill and clammy; the voices of the speakers sounded unnat- 
ural, striking weird echoes against far-off corners, and rolling back 
towards them with a hollow murmur. And in every silence that 
fell they could hear a note of melancholy music — the slow sad drop- 
ping of the ever-filtering water, which, with the patient toil of cen- 
turies, has worked out "the intricacies of that wonderful fretwork 
ceiling. 

“I suppose the rock is safe,” remarked Vincenz, staring upward 
at the white stone icicles. 

The Bohemian shrugged his shoulders. 

“ It may be safe, or it may not; if the day and hour for our death 
have come, there is no use trying to escape it. ” 

“ Let us hope for the best,” said Kurt, cheerfully. 

“And the best is surely a good death,” returned the Bohemian, 
“ only that I should be loath to breathe my last in this strange land.” 

The Bohemian never lost an opportunity of airing his favorite 
complaint, and even Gretchen had given up arguing with him on 
the point. In face of all logic, and despite the clearest demonstra- 
tion, he insisted on considering himself as a stranger and an exile. 

“Are we going out again soon?” asked Tryphosa, in a tone of 
desperate resignation. 


216 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Since they had clone their duty by looking at the cave, she did 
not see why the torture should be prolonged. 

“Going out again!” repeated Gretchen; “ why, we have scarcely 
come in, ” 

“ But w'e cannot go farther,” said the poor princess, in an accent 
which might have moved a heart of marble. And yet the very tone, 
instead of softening her fair and cruel rival, seemed rather to steel 
Gretchen against pity. 

All day long the girl had been in a strange humor — a mood of 
reckless gayety; different altogether from her usual self-possession. 
She seemed like a teetotaler "who has indulged in wine, and has 
become light-headed in consequence. Perhaps Tryphosa’s presence 
had spurred her on to this open encouragement of Tolnay, in which 
she had never so undisguisedly indulged ; perhaps Istvan’s homage, 
now quite ostentatious, had intoxicated her for the moment, giving 
that red-rose flush to her cheek and that deep brilliancy to her eyes. 
She was lovely; and yet there was about her loveliness to-day some- 
thing that repelled even while it fascinated, something that startled 
even while it dazzled. 

“We can go a great deal farther,” she decreed, while with her 
torch held high she looked around her. ‘ ‘ This is only the ground- 
floor, and I want to see the upper stories ; don’t you see that we have 
got staircases all round us? We can explore every one of these niches 
up there ; and I dare say we could walk all round the cave upon 
that ledge, although perhaps it is a little slippery.” 

“ And we can illuminate the place with our torches,” completed 
Istvan, who, while Gretchen spoke, had already commenced to 
spring up the perilous rocks at the side. “ It is quite safe, Friiulein 
Mohr,” he said, turning. 

“It is quite safe, princess,” repeated Gretchen. “Are you com- 
ing up also?” 

There was a flash of cruel coldness, of an almost wicked triumph, 
in the gaze which met Tryphosa’s, The princess stood dumb be- 
fore it, while her hand instinctively felt for the wrecks of the amber 
rosary, just as she would have sought to protect herself from the 
presence of some evil spirit. 

She stood in a sort of trance, feeling as if every tone of that clear 
voice was cutting into her heart like a silver blade, knowing that 
every movement of that graceful figure was a step which crushed 
her happiness. 

She saw, as if in a dream, that Gretchen was mounting the rocks, 
and that Tolnay held out his hand to help her; she saw but these 
two figures alone, and she heard not a word of what the others 
around were speaking. 

There had been a general protest at Gretchen’s first step up the 
rocks. Mr. Howard had argued, even Kurt had objected; only Dr. 
Komers had stood by silent. 

“ Do not go up there, FrEulein; it is not safe,” entreated the Bo- 
hemian. 

“It is quite safe,” answered Gretchen, serenely, from the slippery 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


217 


platform on which she stood; “and besides, you know, if my day 
and hour have come — ” 

They had reached the ledge where a niche in the rock formed a 
sort of sanctuary, a white stone chapel, which shone like ice in the 
torchlight. The stone was broken here into the finest lace-work, 
and twisted into Gothic columns. 

“I have found some silver,” said Gretchen, as she put up her 
hand, and broke off one of the glistening icicles which hung in a 
thick and dazzling fringe above her. 

Her arm was round the pillar, and as she bent forward, her loos- 
ened plaits slipped from their hold and hung down her back. To 
the spectators below she looked like some vision that was scarcely 
earthly; to Tryphosa’s eyes she was a tempting siren, who was lur- 
ing her lover into that crystal bower to hide him forever away from 
her sight. 

As for Istvan, he could not look away ; the surroundings excited 
his ever-ready fanc3^ This scene bore something of the fairy-like 
glamour of that other scene, when he had found Gretchen asleep on 
the bank in the sunset. From the loosened waves of her hair there 
seemed to pour a fiood of fire. He was bewildered and blinded — he 
saw nothing but her. Without thinking of what he did, he put out 
his hand and touched the curling end of her hair. 

“And I have found some gold,” he said, very low, “the most 
beautiful that the world holds. ” 

“ Gretchen!” 

Who was calling her? Whose voice was that? So familiar and 
yet so changed! So calm, and, in its very calmness, so startling! 

“Gretchen!” said Vincenz again, and still in that studiously quiet 
tone, “ I entreat of you to come down.” 

“ Nobody need come up who is afraid,” said Tolnay, with a laugh 
which was all but insolent. 

Vincenz did not answer him; he did not even look at him; his eyes 
were fixed on Gretchen. 

“ I beg you to come down,” he said again ; “ your father has made 
me responsible for your safety.” 

Still she did not speak, standing as immovable as the stone pillar 
beside her, with her hand in Tolnay ’s, but with her eyes on those of 
Vincenz. She appeared to be hesitating, though she said not a word. 

“My dear Dr. Komers,” called back Istvan, “ do you really think 
that nobody but yourself can take care of Fraulein Mohr? Might 
you not at least leave her a little choice in the matter?” 

“Gretchen, come down! I insist on it!” It was his voice again, 
but this time raised, sharp, and peremptory. 

He stood at the foot of the rock and looked upward ; and Gretchen, 
still hesitating, looked down at him. By his attitude and by his 
eyes, by the pallor of his face and the suppressed passion of his tone, 
she knew that in a second more he would be standing beside her on 
the ledge, and that her obedience would be taken by force, if it were 
not now given with her will. 

“ Stay here!” whispered Tolnay, beside her. 


218 


THE WATERS OP IlERCL'LES. 


“ Come down!” said Vincenz, once more. 

She made no answer to either, but mechanically she dropped 
'Tolnay’s hand; and with her eyes still fixed on Vincenz, she made 
a step downward, then stood still, then made another step; moving 
all the time with the blind groping gestures of a somnambulist, con- 
scious that her will was gone from her — that she would have liked 
to resist, but could not, feeling as though his eyes made it impossible 
for her to disobey. 

After the .first two steps she staggered, and her nerve seemed all at 
once to give way. Climbing the rock with her back to the danger 
had been a very different thing from this sickening descent. She 
stood clinging to a ledge, not daring to move another step, not dar- 
ing to look either up or down. 

Before the dizziness was passed she heard Dr. Komers’s voice close 
beside her. 

“Give me your hand,” he said, in a tone of cold command, and 
she gave it to him. 

‘ ‘ Lean on my shoulder. ” 

She obeyed, wondering at her own docility, and seeing not a step 
of the perilous descent before her. 

Without a word Vincenz lifted her off her feet, and in the next 
minute she was standing at the bottom, released from his arm, but 
still trembling, and grown suddenly pale and breathless. 

Istvan had watched the scene from above, glaring down at the two 
figures, but offering no assistance. He descended the rock leisurely 
now, and came up to Dr. Komers. 

“You need not have disturbed yourself,” he began, in a tone of 
artificial politeness. “ I also have got brains in my head ; I also have 
got eyes and arms, and Fraulein Mohr’s-safety is as much my care 
as yours.” 

“It scarcely appeared so,” said Vincenz, icily. 

Istvan’s eyes flashed fire. 

“Do you dare to doubt?” he broke out in a higher and more of- 
fensive tone; but the lawyer stopped him — 

‘ ‘ If you wish to quarrel with me, you must find a better place 
and opportunity: it cannot be here.” 

“Perhaps you prefer not to quarrel,” muttered the Hungarian, 
with a glance of deadly hatred. 

He had been flushed a minute ago, but he was paler now than 
Vincenz himself. It was a terrible revelation which had opened be- 
fore his eyes. For the first time he had felt that this man was to be 
feared; and Istvan Tolnay could not fear a man without hating him. 
It was an alarming revelation, a rude shock to his passion, a mortal 
wound to his vanity. 

“Certainly I prefer not to quarrel ”— and Vincenz turned his pale 
proud face to his rival ; then, with recovered calmness, he moved 
away towards the others. 

The Bohemian was kindling fresh torches to light their passage 
out ; and the half - burned pieces of fir - wood had been stuck about 
into convenient cracks of the rock. High up, on the ledge where 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


219 


Gretchen had stood with Tolnay, there was a torch burning its last, 
for she had left it in the niche. It crackled and flared, dyeing the 
white stone all around wdtli changeful tints, and shooting arrows of 
brilliant light into dimly seen, ghostly-gray hollows. 

While the party still stood in a group, watching the impromptu 
illumination. Princess Tryphosa was observed to turn pale ; very 
gradually, of course — no change in her ever was sudden. 

In a sort of shapeless alarm the others glanced around them. The 
place w^as not soothing to human nerves; and every one was con- 
scious of feeling a little on the strain. Had the princess heard any 
noise? seen any danger threatening? 

Oh no; the cause of Tryphosa’s change of color dated further 
back than that. She had only now distinctly realized the danger 
which had just been passed. 

She looked up at the^ niche above, and shuddered. It was a very 
substantial shudder which passed through her frame. 

“Great heavens!” she gasped, “what a danger! One false step 
and he would have been down there a dead man! Oh, Istvan!” — 
and she clutched at his arm — “let us go, let us go aw\ay. I — I don’t 
think I like caves very much after all; oh, come away!” 

“ Yes,” said Istvan, absently, for he scarcely heard her. His eyes 
were on Gretchen, where she sat apart on one of the round-topped 
stones, silently plaiting up her disordered hair. 

“Come with me, Istvan!” — Tryphosa still clung to his arm — 
“help me out; do not stay — there is danger for you here.” 

Her voice sank to a whisper. She was attempting to draw him 
with her ; but in the same instant she let go his arm, for he had 
turned and given her a look — one of those fierce looks before which 
she always trembled. It scarcely needed the word of warning, mut- 
tered between his teeth, to shake her from him, silent and subdued. 

No one heard what lie said, and the gesture by which he had re- 
leased himself had been scarcely seen ; but the scene wanted no in- 
terpretation ; its meaning was clear, and Istvan’s next words made 
it clearer. 

“Why, don’t you know that I am far too jmung and unsteady for 
a guide?” he said, with a short and disagreeable laugh. “I can 
recommend you no better protector, princess, than Dr, Korners, who 
evidently considers himself the only sensible man of the party,” 

The princess did not change expression: very likely she had not 
yet thoroughly realized her defeat. She mechanically took the arm 
which Dr. Korners offered her in silence. 

The others began to follow, straggling off singly. Gretchen was 
still busy with her hair. She had not regained either her color or 
her voice. From the moment of her descent from the niche, her 
gayety of the morning was extinguished; pale and listless she sat, 
and scarcely noticed what passed around her. 

Tryphosa’s appeal to Tolnay had been the first sound that roused 
her, and guessing at the slight which was given and received, for 
her sake, as she knew, it was"^scarcely triumph that she felt, but rath- 
- er fear. She trembled to see what power she held over Istvan Tolnay, 


220 


THE WATEES OF HERCULES. 


With a nervous glance after the departing figures, she rose to her 
feet to follow. 1st van was the only one who had lingered behind. 

“Is the last of the illumination to be wasted?” he asked. “Do 
you not want to see the torches burn down?” 

He was not laughing as was his wont; there was about his tone 
and eyes a seriousness which Gretchen had rarely seen in him. 

“I — I think I must go,” she faltered ; “the torches will be out 
in a moment, and we should be lost in the dark.” 

“Ah, I understand” — and he bent a little nearer to her — “you 
have to obey orders of course. Has the family lawyer given his 
commands?” He was laughing again, but without any mirth. 

Gretchen’s lips quivered, and without any answer she sat down 
again upon the round-topped stone beside her. At the thought of 
her most unaccountable obedience to Dr. Komers she was ready to 
sink with shame. She could think of no logical reason to explain 
her conduct; but perhaps by now lingering behind she might hope 
to redeem at least the shadow of her independence. 

There were many more of the round -topped stones scattered 
about; in shape like monster cheeses, and in brilliancy like crystal- 
lized sugar. Istvan sat down upon another of these stones ; and he 
also kept silent. 

The torch that Gretchen had left in the niche still burned bright- 
ly, but it was the brightness of approaching death. Each smoul- 
dering piece of fir-wood sent its floating breath upward in circling 
wreatlis. The lights leaped up and sank down, burning deep red 
and palest yellow by turns, while even the crackling of the fir-wood 
was enough to wake whispering echoes in the rock. 

One torch flared up, scattered a few red sparks, then died down 
in an instant, swallowing, as it were, a whole vista of rock into dark- 
ness. 

“You have made me very happy,” said Istvan at last, watching 
her fingers, as they moved in and out of her hair, still plaiting it up. 

“Your happiness is cheap, then,” she said, attempting to speak 
lightly, though her heart was beating fast; “and I don’t "know how 
you come by it now. ” 

“ Don’t you? Merely by your staying here when I asked you.” 

“ Really, Baron Tolnay, I cannot see how so absurd a trifle should 
affect you one way or the other. ” 

“A trifle!” Istvan gave a peculiar smile. “What is a trifle? 
A ribbon is a trifle; a flower is a trifle; and men have killed each 
Other for less than that.” 

“Men are wiser than they used to be.” 

“Hal Our old dispute ; the age of reason and the age of ro- 
mance. Do you remember our talk that evening by the fountain?” 

“Well, yes, my memory is not short,” she said, with studied in- 
difference. 

“ Do you remember looking into the water?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you see anything there, I wonder?” said Istvan, musing. 
“Was there nothing written in the Waters of Hercules?” < 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


221 


While he spoke, a second toreh grew faint and went out. There 
were only three more torches burning now. 

Gretchen dared give no answer to Istvan’s last words. She began 
to understand that she had done a very foolish thing when she sat 
down again upon this glittering stone. Far ahead she could see 
the rest of the party; the light of their torches shone towards the 
narrow entrance of the cave. How she longed to be with them ! 
She would have risen, but some instinct told her that her first move- 
ment would conjure up the crisis which she dreaded ; safety lay 
only in quiescence ; she was prisoner upon her stone. 

“You have made me very happy,” said Istvan again, slowly, 
softly, with a sort of lingering enjoyment in the words; “and you 
have made some one else very unhappy.” 

He paused for a moment, then said betweeu his teeth, 

“I hate that man.” 

He was very pale, and his eyes glittered; but the words had been 
so low that Gretchen felt herself exempt from the necessity of an- 
swering. And what answer could she have made, even had she 
been able to command her voice? Every word seemed loaded with 
gunpowder, and each one might explode. 

“ Another torch gone,” said Istvan, almost in a whisper. 

“ It will be dark very soon.” 

“ Very soon,” he said, watching the sinking torchlight dreamily. 

It was a moment of strange, luxurious, undefined, yet intense en- 
joyment to Istvan Tolnay. He wished to prolong the sensation. 
He was drifting towards something, some crisis which he had al- 
ways felt was coming, and to which he had never yet distinctly 
given expression, even in his own thoughts— to which, perhaps, ho 
had no right to give expression ; but that did not trouble him. The 
waters which carried him along breathed such a soothing perfume, 
such a narcotic scent, that it clouded every disturbing thought. 
That which he was going to do, or going to say in the next minute, 
he had never distinctly contemplated — not yesterday, not this morn- 
ing, not even this minute exactly. He never made plans, and he 
had not made plans either in this. It was merely that he felt it 
coming, and that the sensation was one of dreamy enjoyment. He 
wished that he could prolong it indefinitely. 

“We ought to be going,” said Gretchen; “ there is only one torch 
remaining.” 

“Only one more? so much the better.” 

The last torch was the one in the niche, and with its perishing fire 
it threw a golden net over Gretchen’s hair. It flashed and darkened 
with wild changes, flickering up and sinking, only to flicker up 
again. 

“Look!” said Istvan, “there are words written in the fire! Can 
you read them?” 

He spoke slowly; but his eyes were fevered with excitement. 

“Look! do you not see? The same words that were written in 
the fountain. The fire and the water speak alike. Gretchen, will 
you not tell me what you saw written in the Hercules fountain?” 


222 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


With the last words came a sudden change of tone. Instinctively 
she shrank back. 

He bent quite close to her and whispered, 

“Was there not written, love youV' and seizing her hand, he 
dragged it to his lips. “ I love you, Gretchen, more than my life! 
and you belong to me— you belong to me!” 

He was kissing both her hands and the plait of hair she held. 
She felt that his own fingers trembled, and were burning hot. 

At the same moment a stone displaced by one of the torches got 
loosened from its hold, and went rattling and bounding downward 
past them. 

“1 am frightened!” cried Gretchen, starting from her glistening 
seat. 

Her fright was real enough; but it was not the stone which had 
frightened her. 

And, without giving him an answer — without casting him a glance 
— she wrenched her hand away, and hurried on, groping her way 
forward to the daylight; while behind her the last torch glowed up 
once more, like a fiery rose fading at the foot of the white column ; 
then, scattering its fiaming petals to the air, it shrivelled to a spark, 
to a mere point of light — then was gone altogether, and the vast cave 
sanli back into its habitual darkness. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

A GRANTED PRAYER. 

“ Vous I’avez voulu, Georges Dandin, vous I’avez voulii.”— Moi.ikek. 

The morrow of the visit to the cave was the eve of the Franco- 
pazzi’s departure from the Hercules valley, and early in the after- 
noon Gretchen set forth to pay her farewell visit. 

When she knocked at the door of the apartment, she was encour- 
aged to enter by Belita’s voice saying in a somewhat 

muffled tone, the reason of which was soon obvious to Gretchen. . 

Belita was on her knees in the centre of the room, with more than 
a dozen pins in her mouth, and she was busied in draping the folds 
of a long gray tunic. This gray tunic (destined to form part of the 
contessa’s travelling dress) was at this moment w'orn by the conte, 
who, in the character of lay-figure, was standing motionless and pa- 
tient before his wife. He did not make a bad lay-figure by any 
means : he possessed the requisite slenderness of waist and the req- 
uisite serenity of temper— in the matter of height alone did he fall 
short of the desired mark. But Belita was a woman of resources; 
she had obviated the difficulty by making her lord and master 
take up his position on a footstool, which raised his figure to the 
majestic proportions desirable for insuring the successful fall of the 
tunic. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


223 


The conte bowed witli all the grace he could muster under the 
circumstances, and Belita, having disposed of her i)ins, addi’essed 
her visitor cheerfully. 

‘ ‘ They looped up this thing so atrociously, my dear, that I have 
been forced to do it all over again, I could not have travelled a 
mile in it as it was; utterly without chic. Take a chair, my dear 
child, and read something; I shall be at your disposal presently. I 
am glad you have come, for I wanted to talk to you. A little more 
to the left, please, Ludovico caro.” 

Gretchen, sitting down, applied herself to the only shape of liter- 
ature visible, w^hich was French fashion-papers. Here she was in- 
formed that diamond lizards were out of fashion, and that the new 
shape of jacket promised to be a wonderful success. She was begged 
not to suppose that chaussure was remaining stationary; also she 
was recommended to wear diamonds, happily mixed with opals. 

She tossed the paper aside, and leaned out of the window. Down 
there a travelling carriage, ready packed with luggage, stood waiting 
for some departing visitor. The Hercules valley was beginning to 
wear its autumn look — a look of desertion and solitude. Every day 
now made the change more sensible. There were fewer people 
lounging in the Cursalon, fewer people walking in the arcades ; the 
meals on the oleander - shaded veranda grew daily less noisy and 
less crowded. More than one shop had put up its shutters for good, 
and stowed away the unsold things in the big wooden packing-cases 
which had brought them there in spring. The sun was bright, but 
no longer hot; the air so chilled and clear that every sound in the 
valley sharpened into acute distinctness. They had seen the Her- 
cules valley slowly waking from its winter sleep, stretching itself, as 
it were, yawning and rubbing its many eyes ; it was strange now to 
watch the eyes closing one by one, as the place slowly sank back 
into the heavy torpor which yearly overpowered it. What a gulf 
between those days and these! Was there not a whole lifetime, a 
whole world separating now and then? Then Gretchen had felt so 
sure that the Hercules Waters Tvere going to restore her father to 
health; and now Adalbert was as far from recovery as he had been 
then. Ah! must she confess it at last — farther than he had been 
then. Then Gretchen’s path in life had lain so broad and distinct 
before her — now she had lost her way, and there was no sign-post to 
put her right again ; then she had been so content with her prospects 
of fortune, and now — 

There was the sound of a stumble behind her; and looking round 
she saw the Conte Francopazzi descending from his elevation, being 
released from the tunic and dismissed from the room. 

“It will do now,” said Belita with a sigh of relief; “in fact I 
don’t think I should be saying too much if I called it a chef-d’ceuvre 
of drapery. I cannot tell you how useful it is to have a husband 
for looping up your tunics on!” 

There w^as no echo to the sentiment; Gretchen, without a word, 
flung her arms on to the wide window-sill, and stared down at the 
street below. 


224 


THE WATEES OP HERCULES. 


Belita looked at lier friend’s back, raised her eyebrows, and shook 
her head. 

“I hope she is not losing her senses,” reflected the contessa, with 
a twinge of anxiety; “ I really must speak to her.” 

But before Belita had time to speak, Gretchen herself turned sud- 
denly from the window, and put a strange, abrupt question to her 
friend. 

“Tell me, Belita, have I been mistaken all along? Are fortune 
and happiness, after all, two things and not one?” 

“Fortune and happiness?” Belita staggered in her stupefaction, 
not so much at the words as at the tone. She fell back a step, act- 
ually forgetful of the chef-d'oeuvre of drapery which she still held, 
and stood gazing at her friend with a sort of tender fear. 

But Belita’s presence of mind never deserted her for long. Her 
first care was for her tunic, her second for her friend. Taking 
Gretchen by the hand, she led her to a seat, and made her sit down ; 
and Gretchen sat down with perfect submission, only upon her face 
and in her widely opened eyes there was a look of hungry expecta- 
tion, as though she were listening for the answer of an oracle. 

“Are you quite sure you are not ill?” asked Belita, affectionately. 
“I always said that the air of the Hercules valley did not agree 
with you.” 

“I am quite well,” said Gretchen; “but you have not answered 
me.” 

“Immediately, my dear child; what doubt can you have of my 
answer? Of course fortune and happiness are two names for one 
thing, ” 

“But not always?” 

“Of course always.” 

“How do you know it?” 

“By personal experience. I am rich and I am happy; therefore 
it stands to reason that when you are rich — ” 

“Oh no,” cried Gretchen, putting her hands to her ears — “stop! 
It does not stand to reason at all — nothing stands to reason, I think.” 

Belita had no right to turn her own weapons against her; and for 
the first time it struck Gretchen that her pet phrase sounded wx^ak 
and senseless. 

Misericordia ! What a temper! Well, you can follow up the 
deduction for yourself ; you were always the stronger of us two in 
logic. You know how hard I tried for the prix de logique which 
you carried off so swimmingly.” 

“Why will you keep harping upon that old story?” was the im- 
patient retort. 

Somehow the memory of that triumph was not a congenial thought 
to-day; and, with a start, Gretchen checked herself on the verge of 
the heretical reflection that the reputation of having gained a qwix 
de logique is not the easiest thing in the world to live up to. 

“And now,” said Belita, carefully scrutinizing her friend’s face, 
“ be so kind as to tell me what other possible answer you could have* 
expected to your most incomprehensible question?” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


225 


“I thought there might be another sort of happiness, that is all.” 
She was speaking more to herself than to Belita. 

Misericordmr murmured the contessa, wringing her hands, 
“she has been reading books; she has got a poetical fit upon her. 
I wonder how these cases should be treated? 

“What other sort could possibly exist?” she continued, after a 
disconcerted pause. “People make such a fuss about missing their 
happiness, and so on ; but you and I, Margherita, are wiser : we 
know that the way is simple. You have only got to marry a rich 
man, who is good - natured, and who, if possible, matches you in 
height — whom you don't mind seeing every day, but whom you will 
not miss when he is away, and who can make himself useful — ” 

“For looping up tunics on, for instance?” suggested Gretchen. 

“For looping up tunics on, exactly,” said the contessa, unper- 
turbed. 

“ But are you and I wiser, Belita? That is what I want to know. 
We are either much wiser or much more foolish than the rest of the 
world.” 

Perhaps the growing consternation of Belita’s face alarmed 
Gretchen as to what she had said. Without waiting for an answer, 
she snatched up the fashion-paper beside her. 

“ Why do you keep nothing but these ridiculous papers? Novels 
are much more interesting.” 

“Novels ! Just as I feared,” sighed Belita to herself. Her worst 
apprehensions were justified. 

“ Did you read that novel I sent you, Belita?” 

“I glanced at it, my dear; but I do not think it was worth finish- 
ing. The idea of making the heroine wear a chignon, when every 
educated person knows that chignons were quite out of fashion in 
1870. , I read as far as the chignon, but I could not get over that.” 

“Then you do not know the end? I sat up all night reading it.” 

“A very foolish thing for 5^011 to do.” 

“I could not get to sleep without knowing whether the heroine 
would give up the hero or not, after he had lost his fortune. ” 

“ And she did not?” 

“No; she did not.” 

“More fool she. But he got back his fortune, of course? They 
always do at the end of the third volume.” 

“ He did get back his fortune,” Gretchen reluctantly admitted. 

Belita shook her head. 

“ I do not understand you, Margherita.” 

“Really? How strange!” 

What would not Gretchen have given to any one at that moment 
who could have helped her to understand herself? 

“ You are not like yourself to-day; you have not been like your- 
self for some time past. It never used to be your habit to sit up 
reading novels by night, nor by day either, for the matter of that.” 

Gretchen made no answer; she was not listening. Her eyes were 
fixed before her, her thoughts were busily painting two pictures and 
putting them in contrast to each other. 

15 


226 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


One picture was painted in brilliant colors, and the canvas was 
somewhat crowded with gorgeous objects. There was a carriage 
with a baron’s crown painted on the panel ; there was a glimpse of 
brilliant apartments, a glitter of jewels: there was everything which 
had figured in her dreams of ambition. 

On the second picture there was very little, only a steep winding 
staircase, a dusty ivy-plant in the window, and, as centre-piece, a 
hard-worked man coming home at night weary from his desk. 

Surely there could be no hesitation in the choice. Why, it was 
not even a matter of choice, she thought, as she detected herself con- 
trasting these two pictures. She had twice been asked to walk up 
that steep staircase, and she had refused; she was not going to be 
asked a third time. Somebody else would water the ivy-plant in the 
window. Perhaps Barbara Bitterfreuud. She wondered what Bar- 
bara Bitterfreund was like. 

Belita’s voice recalled her to realities. 

“Margherita — ” began the contessa, abruptly. 

“Well?” 

“ Do you remember the first day when we walked in the arcades?” 

“What of it?” 

“I meant then to give you a lecture upon life in general; and af- 
terwards we met Baron Tolnay, and I did not; well, I mean to give 
you that deferred lecture now. Here I am on the eve of my depart- 
ure, and I certainly had hoped before starting to give you my ma- 
ternal benediction on an auspicious occasion. In fact, I made the 
sacrifice of keeping a new dress for jour de Jian^ille.% and the trim- 
ming is now dhnode, and consequently wasted. I cannot understand 
why you have not brought Baron Tolnay to the point long ago; you 
are playing with your chances. If you were a classical beauty you 
could afford to wait; but I have told you often, Bambina, that, strict- 
ly speaking, you are more picturesque than beautiful. To put it 
clearly, without beating about the bush — which is a thing I detest — 
you look too breakable for many tastes, and it is only a rich man 
who can afford breakable luxuries. It is a mere chance whether you 
happen to hit a man’s fancy or not.” 

Gretchen, as she sat listening to the empty, vapid, good-natured 
chatter, was wondering how she had never till now discovered its 
emptiness and its absurdity. 

“Are you sure that is all?” she asked, with a curl of her lip. 
“Have you no more advice to give me?” 

“ Certainly I have, and you need it all; for you are, unfortunately, 
a German, my dear child, and in every German there is hidden a seed 
which should be crushed in early childhood. Even you cannot, it 
seems, quite escape from the commonplace taint of sentimentality 
which is the ruin of your nation. You are only a German after all.” 

“And you are only an Elegante!” broke out Gretchen, with a 
sudden burst of indignation; “you are nothing but a heartless Ele- 
garde. ” 

She felt so angry at the moment that she would not have minded 
quarrelling even with Belita. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


227 


But nothing was farther from Belita’s mind then quarrelling. She 
left her chair, and going up to Gretchen embraced her with elfusion. 

. ‘ ‘ Margherita mia ! you have made me quite happy ! An Elegante ! 
Why, that is the height of my ambition ; the very title which I am 
striving to live up to. I thank you immensely for that word.” 

“And this,” thought Gretchen, bitterly — “this is the oracle to 
whom I have come for advice. This is the woman who has been my 
friend !” 

Poor Gretchen! Her logic was at fault again; she had looked 
for a head and a heart where all was empty. Such people as this 
have not got heads, they have got coiffures; they have not got hearts, 
they have got ceintures, or cuirasses, or whatever form of covering 
the fashion prescribes; they have not even got hands and feet, but 
only chaussure and gants de Suede, and they themselves consist much 
more of bodices than of bodies. 

' Gretchen rose from her chair to take leave. 

“What! going already, Are you sure you have no 

more questions to ask? Remember that I am always ready with my 
advice; always come to me when you are in doubt— promise!”* 

“ Yes,” said Gretchen, with an odd smile, “ I promise. I shall al- 
ways come to you when I am in doubt — about the draping of a tu- 
nic.” 

“Which next time will be the tunic of your wedding-dress, of 
course : eh, sicuro, child ; don’t shake your head ! What a fright you 
gave me, to be sure, with your ‘other sort of happiness!’ Why, 
have you not proved to me a hundred times yourself (not that I 
wanted it proved) that fortune is the only sort of happiness worth 
having, because it can buy every other?” 

“I have ” — it echoed in Gretchen’s heart. 

“Did you not boast a hundred times that your experience was 
gathered for you beforehand?” 

“ I did — oh yes, I did,” thought Gretchen. 

“Oh, Margherita, that I should have to remind you of this!” — 
there was an hysterical quiver in Belita’s voice, she had seized her 
friend’s hand between her own— “that I should have to remind you 
that your fortune is still to be made!” 

“ My fortune, yes,” said Gretchen, with a start. “ I— I, of course 
—I am going to make my fortune, but I told you that it shall be in 
my own way.” 

“And that way leads to Gaura Dracului, I suppose,,” sneered Be- 
lita. “Are you not yet cured of that pretty little fable about the 
brigands’ treasure? Why, oh most contradictious of all maidens, 
will you persist in hunting for your fortune among the hills, when 
by merely marrying Baron Tolnay your fortune is made, and how 
brilliantly?” . , , 

“But,” said Gretchen, slowly, “if I find the brigands’ treasure, 
then my fortune is made at any rate, and I can marry whom I like.” 

She had scarcely said it, when she took fright at herself. For the 
space of a few seconds she stood, staring back into Bclita’s horror- 
stricken eyes, then hastily lowered her long lashes and guiltily 


228 


THE WATEKS OF HERCULES. 


drooped her head. She took fright at the fright of her friend ; for 
if there was so much horror written in Belita’seyes, what must there 
he written in her own? With a rush of crimson to her cheek, 
Gretchen wrenched herself free, and before Belita could stop her, 
she had reached the door and was gone. 

She ran home, almost as if she feared pursuit. It seemed to her 
that she could not have stood Belita s piercing gaze for a moment 
longer, that she could not have borne another word of Belita’s; and, 
no doubt, with the contessa’s ingrained antipathy to beating about 
the bush, that next word, if spoken, would have been disagreeably 
plain. She felt like a person with a guilty secret, like an undiscov- 
ered criminal, like a murderer whose confidence the black forest and 
the midnight hour have kept, but who cannot meet the sunshine 
without thinking, “They will see the red stain on my hands, and 
they will know that I am guilty.” 

Gretchen ran home to look for solitude and peace; but neither 
solitude nor peace was to be hers to-day. On the very threshold a 
new trial lay in wait. 

The afternoon post had capriciously chosen to be punctual to-daj’’ ; 
and Herr Mohr, with querulous impatience, was inquiring why his 
daughter was not at home to read his letters aloud. This had been 
Gretchen’s office ever since the commencement of her father’s ill- 
ness. She had as yet showed herself a punctual and business-like 
secretary; but to-day it was with somewhat disordered thoughts, and 
an anything but undivided attention, that she applied herself to her 
duty. 

There were four letters to l>e read, and everything went smooth 
during the reading of the first three; the fourth was addressed in a 
handwriting not familiar to Gretchen, but it bore the postmark of 
Kurt’s college town. Letters with this postmark had been rather 
frequent lately, though they had alwa3^s been addressed to Kurt him- 
self, and never to his father. 

“What excellent correspondents your fellow - students are!” 
Gretchen had once remarked ; and Kurt had answered, with a laugh, 
“Oh, aren’t they, just? and so affectionate, too!” 

On that occasion Gretchen had felt a passing flash of curiosity 
and a passing pang of uneasiness. The great affection of Kurt’s 
school friends had not appeared to her to be re-assuring, not like the 
habit of school-fellows in general. However, she had so many other 
things to think of, that the subject had not weighed on her mind for 
long; and to-day, as she opened the fourth letter, she scarcely no- 
ticed the postmark it bore. 

“Sir, — The continued silence witli which my seven previous 
communications have been met compels me, however much against 
my will, to adopt this new course, in order to obtain—” 

Thus far Gretchen had read mechanically, but all at once she 
drew up. 

“Well,” said Herr Mohr, testilj’, “is that all?” and Ascelinde, 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


22.9 


wlio sat at the farther end of the room, an apathetic and uninterest- 
ed listener, looked up with an inquiring stare. 

“ I— I think it is a mistake,” stammered the daughter, while with 
lightning haste her eye skimmed the page. “Borrowed sum,” 
“term of repayment,” “money advanced to your son,” and other 
expressions which she was able to snatch in passing, were enough to 
give her the key of the mystery. That vulgar old spectre called 
“debt” had started up, mid was staring her in the face; and be- 
hind it hovered all its train of hook-nosed Jews and monstrous per- 
centages. 

“A mistake!” echoed Herr Mohr. “It strikes me that you are 
making nothing but mistakes to-day; you turned the Wednesday 
in the date of the first letter into Ash- Wednesday, and you made 
Steinwurm talk of caves instead of crypts. What is this new mis- 
take about?” 

“It is — it is — that is to say, I think the letter is not for you, papa; 
it is meant for some one else;” and she crushed the perilous letter 
into the depth of her pocket. 

“Then why do you open some one else’s letter?” asked the im 
valid, sharply. 

“ Because — well, I think the address was not distinct.” 

“It is you who are not distinct. I could scarcely make out a 
line of what you read to-day ; you never used to mumble in this way 
before. I suppose” — with a touch of increased asperity — “that it 
is not so amusing to read aloud letters to an old. man as to walk 
about the hills with a young one.” 

Gretchen could not answer, though her cheek was burning. She 
longed to rise and be gone to her own room, but she knew that this 
mood of her father’s was not to be escaped. 

“A tiresome office,” he was saying, still in that tone of melan- 
choly cynicism which had grown upon him since his illness; “but 
cheer up, Gretchen, you will soon be quit of it. Instead of acting 
the secretary you will be comirianding one. I suppose my Lady 
Baroness will be too grand ever to dip a pen in ink herself, or to be 
troubled with deciphering the crooked calligraphy of the age?” 

The tears were in Gretchen’s eyes; she dared not move, for fear 
that they should fall; she dared not speak, for fear that her voice 
should betray her. But, silent though she was, something in her 
face betrayed her all the same; for with a sudden change of tone her 
father said, 

“ Why, Gretchen, you look as woe-begonc as though the splendor 
of your own good-fortune frightened you. You are luckier than a 
princess in a fairy tale; you cried for the moon, and you have got 
it. What is wrong with it now? Is it too big, or too bright? Does 
it burn your fingers? Or would your ladyship like the sun better? 
It was your own wish, you know.” 

“My own wish— yes, my own wish,” repeated Gretchen to herself.-- 

True again — all quite true. Belita was right ; her father was 
right. Everywhere there stood her own wishes, her own arguments, 
licr own words, her own self between her and — ah, between her and 


230 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


what? There, indeed, was the rub ; something unutterable, unde 
finable — something which she dared not look at, dared not think of, 
and yet could not crush. 

She started from her chair;, there was no peace here either, and 
no concealment for the poor criminal. In the privacy of her own 
chamber she meant to seek it ; and certainly, to reach her room un- 
molested did not seem an unreasonable desire, nor an unfeasible un- 
dertaking. But there are days when the furies will follow a man 
about step by step ; and the spirits of evil had hold of Gretchen to- 
day. She had not got farther than the passage when there was a 
rustle of drapery behind her; and turning round, she found herself 
confronted by her mother, who had sat by, an apparently indifferent 
spectator of the scene just past. 

But Gretchen scarcely recognized her mother now; there was a 
flush on her cheek, there was light again in the eyes, which, since 
the day when they fell upon the walls of Draskocs, had seemed to 
liave grown dim forever. What had brought this change? What 
had worked this instantaneous transformation? Gretchen was soon 
to know. 

Ascelinde did not say much ; but what she said was enough for 
Gretchen. Flinging her massive arms around her daughter’s neck, 
she murmured in her ear, 

“I could not believe it till now ; it was too good to be true. I 
thought that Fate had nothing but disappointments in store for us. 
Oh, my daughter!” and her voice swelled to exultation, “ Draskocs 
will be Draskocs after all, for you will rebuild the house of my an- 
cestors!” 

Majestically she swept from the spot, and went to dream of the 
real stone walls that were to rise, and the real white swans that were 
to swim round the real Draskocs of the future. Hitherto Baron 
Tolnay’s suit had been to her a dim and far-off thing — a sort of dis- 
tantly twinkling star too shapeless to penetrate the profundity of 
that grief, the fondling and fostering and petting of which now 
formed her sole interest in life. It was only to-day, during Adal- 
bert’s pointed remarks to his daughter, that, roused from her apa- 
thy, there had flashed across her mind the grand inspiration to which 
she had just given utterance. She was almost as happy, while she 
built her Draskocs in the air, while she furnished the rooms, laid 
the pavement, and peopled the stables, as she had been in the far-off, 
dream-beguiled, deceptive ante-Draskocs days. 

And Gretchen stood where her mother had left her, and gazed 
round her in the empty passage, with the stare of an animal at bay. 

A cold dread was creeping over her, a nameless panic was shak- 
ing her. 

She was chained and prisoned ; but the chains were of her own 
forging, the prison of her own building; Avhat right had she to com- 
plain? Golden chains! A golden prison-wall! But ah, how heavy, 
how oppressive ! Turn which way she might, the passage was barred. 
On all sides the same assurance, the same smiles, the same unhesi- 
tating conlidcuce.that her lot was cast. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


231 


“ And it is cast!” thought Gretchen. “ I have cast it myself.” 

She herself had composed the recipe for her happiness; there was 
no ingredient a-wantiug — neither the silver florins, nor the golden 
ducats, nor the coronet. How was it, then, that the result tasted so much 
more bitter than sweet — so much more like misery than happiness? 

In common logic and in common justice she had no right now to 
reverse her fate, and she had no idea of reversing it. A desperate 
quiet, a numb feeling of resignation began to steal over her. She 
was conscious only of a helpless shrinking from the moment of the 
crisis. Yesterday it had been all but completed; next time it would 
be completed. It was impossible to meet Baron Tolnay again as a 
mere acquaintance. To-morrow they were to be on the mountains 
again, and to-morrow her fate would be clinched. Oh, rather to- 
morrow than to-day ! rather next hour than this hour 1 rather even 
next minute than this minute! 

Respite was what she asked for, and in the mean time peace. Sure- 
ly now, at last, she could reach her room undisturbed, and find there 
the solitude for which she panted. 

She was not two steps from that haven when Kurt, turning the 
corner, met her close. At the sight of her brother she instantly re- 
membered that letter in her pocket, which had lain there forgotten 
since the moment of the broken-off reading. Without reflection, she 
pulled out the crumpled paper and held it towards him. 

Kurt received it calmly, and read it attentively; while, speechless 
with sisterly indignation, and brimful of overwhelming reproaches, 
Gretchen watched his face. 

There was not much to see on Kurt’s face ; nothing but an easy 
good-humor and a perfect self-confidence was written there. 

“ So you have found it out,” he remarked, pleasantly, while with 
serene composure he folded up the paper. 

“ Oh, Kurt, how could you?” cried Gretchen, in her severest tone 
of censure, before which Kurt was accustomed 'not to quail. 

“Yes ; I am in a devil of a mess!” he said, with a particularly 
bright smile. “Lucky for me that the w\ay out of it is so short!” 

“At your age!” groaned his sister, wringing her hands, too excited 
to pay much heed to the latter half of his phrase. 

“Some of us begin early and some of us begin late,” returned Kurt, 
with all the aplomb of a thrice-bankrupt rouk “But surely a woman 
of your logical powers will admit that the immorality of the proceed- 
ing is not greater at sixteen than at twenty-six?” 

“ I admit nothing,” said Gretchen; “ it all comes from your smok- 
ing cigars and drinking wine, when you should have been learning 
your lessons in the school-room.” 

“My habits are expensive, that much I grant;” and Kurt pulled 
up his shirt-collar with a shade of extra complacency. “ It is a great 
mistake my not having been born a millionaire ; but it was nature 
who blundered there, and not I — ” 

“No more nonsense, please,” remarked Gretchen, with a frown 
of judicial severity; “and let us keep to what is, not to what might 
have been. Why have you kept the matter a secret?” 


232 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ Why? Because it would have disagi’eed with my father.” 

“It will disagree with him all the more when he has to pay the 
accumulated percentages.” 

“Oh, well, but perhaps he won’t have to pay them,” said Kurt, 
mysteriously. 

“ How can that be? Have you come to any settlement? Has Dr. 
Komers been advising you?” 

Her brother looked at her and laughed. 

“Dr. Komers! Oh no, my dear Gretchen ; the family lawyer is 
not the man to help me. It is your other friend that I look to.” 

“My friend ! What do jmu mean?” 

“You see,” said Kurt, leisurely puffing his cigar, “I was fool 
enough to count upon Draskocs, or rather, Herr Mandelbaum was 
fool enough to count upon it for some time ; and now — ” 

“And now, well?” 

“Now I count upon something else.” 

“Please explain yourself,” said Gretchen, coldly. 

“I have explained myself already. I told you that I counted upon 
your other friend.” 

Gretchen stared back at him with a little flush on her cheeks. 

“Look here,” said Kurt, knocking the ashes off his cigar, “per- 
haps you don’t mind telling me what you and Tolnay talked about 
yesterday in the cave when you stayed" behind?” 

The transition in the first moment might appear abrupt; but an 
uneasy suspicion was already knocking at Gretchen’s heart. 

“ What has that got to do with it? We talked about the cave, of 
course.” 

“ Oh, of course, naturally; and about the beauties of nature and the 
geological causes of the stone-formation, and so on. Oh yes, I know ; 
but you will not go on talking about caves for much longer, I presume.” 

Gretchen’s face had grown scarlet. 

“Kurt— I—” 

“Do not wish to dwell upon the subject. I understand. What 
I meant to say was simply that I have the greatest confidence in Tol- 
nay’s coming forward in a handsome and gentleman-like fashion, for 
wliich I esteem him highly in advance.” 

“Really, Kurt, this is unbearable!” cried Gretehen, turning away. 
“It is bad enough for a boy of your age to make debts; you need 
not make jokes about it too!” 

“Jokes!” eehoed Kurt, good - naturedly ; “you have no notion 
how serious I am. There is no need for you to go in for such ex- 
cessive unconsciousness, when everybody knows that the affair must 
be settled within tlie week.” 

“ What affair?” 

“ Since you will have me speak plainly, your marriage with Baron 
Tolnay.” 

“And supposing I do not marry Baron Tolnay?” she asked, turn- 
in" at the door of the room. 

He looked at her for a moment, then began to laugh. 

“My dear Gretchen, it is you who are joking new; and I must 


TITK y/ATERS OF HERCULES. 


233 


confess that your choice of a subject is not a very happy one. You 
might try and hit upon something that is either more amusing or 
more credible.” 

“ Do you mean to say that I am to marry Baron Tolnay in order 
that your debts should be paid ?” 

‘ ‘ 1 think you have plenty of other reasons for marrying him, and 
those few beggarly thousand florins can go along with it.” 

It was to be borne no longer; the conspiracy was unanimous. 
The words and the smiles on all sides agreed; and every word was 
a new stone in the wall, every smile a golden link of the chain which 
she had forged to bind herself. Would not the very leaves on the 
trees lift up their voices next to taunt her? Would not the sparrows 
chirp, and the insects hum, into her ear, “You wanted it yourself; 
you have your wish now; of what do you complain?” 

Her courage had carried her thus far; it would carry her no far* 
ther. She turned upon her brother a gaze which was meant to be 
haughty, but which first wavered into despair, and then melted into 
tearfulness. 

“ Oh, Kurt, you too!” she cried, with sudden wildness; and before 
her brother’s eyes the cool-headed, the self-possessed, the logical- 
minded Gretchen burst into a storm of absolutely illogical, but not 
the less burning tears. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

DULCETIA AND DAGGERS. 

“And she, sweet lady, dotes, 

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry. 

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.” 

Midsummer Xight’s Dream. 

Evening came — perhaps her last evening of freedom, thought 
Gretchen, as, alone in her room, she stood by the open window, and 
allowed the night air to fan her hot cheeks. 

It was a bright and silvery night for the world, but not for the 
Hercules valley. 

Elsewhere the moon is glorifying points of rock, and striking cold 
flashes from the water ; here the rock and the water sleep untouehed. 
But rarely the sun shines into the very heart of the valley, and more 
rarely still the moon, Moonlight here is a distant dream. Looking 
down the valley, where the space is wider and shallower, it is seen 
lying, a transparent veil upon the hills — a still cold veil wliich hides 
nothing and beautifies everything. Here the moon must have risen 
very high before it can pour its light-floods down the flanks of these 
jealously guarding mountains. And 3^et the invisible moon is felt, 
for without the moon the night sky could not be of this transparent, 
quivering paleness. Never do the mountains look so black as they 
do when, on nights like these, each ridge on their summit, and each 
tiniest curve and angle of outline, is thrown out in startling contrast 


234 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


to the shining background. Never do the rocks frown more heavi- 
ly, nor the valley wrap itself up more gloomily in its depth of dark- 
ness, than when the rest of the world is hooded and silvered with 
the moonlight. 

Wait long enough, and presently strange effects will be seen on the 
hills opposite. The edge of the disk has reached the level of the 
hill-top, and the first white beam trembles on the mountain-side. 
Timidly it touches some tree, and that tree, which a minute ago 
was only one in the million of other trees, becomes forthwith a thing 
of wonderful beauty. It is the favored and chosen object of the 
moonlight; the moon has elected it out of the black mass around, 
and lavishes its favors richly. It was but a black pine a minute ago 
— it IS now a tree worthy of fairy -land; its stem is glorified, its 
branches are fancifully beautified, each tiny twig is dreamily ideal- 
ized. The black pines around wait in sullen patience until their 
turn shall come. To some of them it will come, to some of them 
not; for it is rarely, very rarely, that the moon will pierce to the 
heart of this spot in the valley. It is in vain that the Djernis sings 
songs to the moonlight, wooing her now with laughter and now 
with sobs; the moonlight is not tempted by the enchanter’s voice, 
and will not let herself be drawn down to the enchanter’s embrace. 

It was such an evening as this to-day — glory everywhere else, and 
blackness here. But the valley had another voice to-night besides 
the moaning Djernis; for Dr. Kokovics, as a last melancholy con- 
tribution to the amusement of the fast-waning public, was wander- 
ing about at the foot of the hill, making night hideous with some 
bulky wind-instrument of awful power. The public was decidedly 
amused, but scarcely as the doctor had intended. Some ungrateful 
people laughed, some shut their ears, others their windows. 

Gretchen also shut her window at last. She must have been in a 
very unusual state of mind, for she did not see anything either ab- 
surd or irritating in the doctor’s Flugelhorn. 

The air which his instrument wailed forth was familiar to her. 
It was a Roumanian song, a favorite among the peasants of the val- 
ley, a rough ditty, treating of the “Herb Forgetfulness ’’—the mag- 
ic plant whose taste destroys memory, and which the dams of the 
flock search for on the mountain-tops in order to blot out the mem- 
ory of their butchered lambs. 

Even the words were not strange to Gretchen : she knew by heart 
the verse in which the dying Roumanian girl calls on her lover to 
seek forgetfulness in the mountain herb — 

“ Haste thee to the hills, my love. 

Since cold death doth bid ns part; 

Ilifrh up grows the magic herb 
That will cure thiue aching heart.” 

To which the lover makes reply — 

“Tasted I each fragrant herb, 

Sipped I of each dewy llower ; 

Drive thine image from my breast, 

Sweciheart, none could have the power.’* 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


235 


Having recalled this verse to her memory, Gretchen, somewhat 
hastily, closed the window. In the combination of the melancholy 
music and the far-off moonlight she had reeognized two elements 
whieh possessed the powder of developing eertain dangerous germs of 
thought, of whose existence she was conscious. The night air was 
chill ; but it was not the fear of eatehing cold which caused the win- 
dow to be elosed so hastily. Moonlight nights are quite as condueive 
to mental as to bodily indispositions. She was still struggling with 
the bolt, when all at once a figure became visible outside. It seemed 
to dip up suddenly and silently out of the darkness, and was close be- 
low the window before she had noticed its approach. 

Gretchen opened the pane curiously a little way and looked out. 

The figure had come to a halt just below the window, and was 
standing with upturned face. 

“ Mademoiselle, est-ce vousf" asked a woman’s voice. 

Gretehen recognized the Frenchwoman who was in charge of 
Princess Tryphosa’s child. 

A small three-cornered note was handed up to her — a very heavi- 
ly scented little note, fragrant as some rich exotic flower. That 
same perfume seemed always to hang about the princess herself. 

Gretchen opened the note with an uneasy conscience. It contained 
only a few lines, begging her earnestly and urgently to visit the 
princess at once. It gave no motive for the request. 

“ Is the princess ill?” asked Gretchen, somewhat startled. 

** Madame est irh fatiguee,” s,di\6. the maid. Madame had been all 
day in bed, and had only now made the great effort of putting on 
her dressing-gown. She hoped that mademoiselle would be so kind 
as to come at once. 

“Yes, I shall come,” said Gretchen. The request was strange, 
unexpected, and unceremonious, but, despite her alarm, she felt no 
desire to avoid the meeting. Though nothing further should come 
of it, it would at least shorten by an hour the long sleepless night 
which she saw before her. Anything resembling an adventure was 
Tvelcome to her overstrained nerves. She slipped noiselessly from 
her room, and, guided by Fanchette, very soon reached Tryphosa’s 
apartments. 

The princess was sitting when Gretchen entered; she rose very 
slowly and saluted the visitor. 

The room was Tryphosa’s bedroom, and a low lamp burned on 
the table. It poured a bright glare on the floor, and illuminated 
Tryphosa’s figure distinctly to the height of her waist. Above that 
the china shade dimmed the outline of things— of Tryphosa’s face, 
among other things. 

Gretchen glanced curiously round her. The room in its funda- 
mental arrangement had not been very different from most Euro- 
pean rooms with which she had been acquainted ; it had a bed, a 
press, a sofa, a polished table; but an Oriental influence was visible 
on them all. On the bed there was flung a silken cover, so subtly 
blended in color that it told its Eastern tale at the first glanctT. Be- 
tween the doors of the half-open press there shone the folds of a 


23G 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Turkish shawl; on the sofa were cushions of Oriental embroidery; 
thick Persian carpets relieved the bareness of tlie polished floor. 
The very towels were not at all like the towels which Gretchen had 
ever seen before ; each corner, a delicate intricacy of golden and 
silken threads, would have been treated with tender adoration by 
any member of any art needle-work society. It is as natural for a 
Roumanian woman to drag about with her her carpets and her em- 
broidered pillows, as it is for an English lady to travel with her pat- 
ent water-proof and fitted toilet-case. 

On the table there lay two soft feather fans, ruffling and fluttering 
noiselessly at each breath of air which touched them. Beside the 
feather fans, or rather half buried under them, lay the remains of 
the rnutilated amber rosary; next to it the last Paul de Kock novel. 
They lay there as if flung aside as useless— as if comfort had been 
sought in both and found in neither. 

“Good-evening, mademoiselle,” said the princess, as she rose 
heavily from her chair. “ I am grateful to you for having come, 
and having come so quick.” 

It was evident that the rapidity of Gretchen’s appearanee had much 
surprised the writer of the note. At all times Gretchen w’as a puz- 
zle to Tryphosa; her energy, her decision, the ease with 'which she 
came to a resolution, and the rapidity with which she acted upon it, 
were alike strange, bewildering, and tantalizing to the slow Rouma- 
nian ; but this case was especially salient. Considering that it had 
taken Tryphosa tlie whole forenoon to mature the idea '^diich had 
first dawned in her mind yesterday, as she sat at the foot of the beech- 
tree, and that it had taken her the whole afternoon to fabricate 
the note of summons which was the point and upshot of her medi- 
tations, it was a little startling to find that it had taken Gretchen 
only ten minutes to answer that summons. If Gretchen's thoughts, 
words, and deeds had progressed at the same rate as did Tryphosa’s, 
her appearance here ought to have taken place about this time to- 
morrow. 

After the first greeting, Tryphosa put out her hand, and taking 
Gretchen’s fingers in hers, drew the girl slowly forwaird until the 
lamplight was full upon her face. 

Gretchen remained passive; the princess’s eyes were fixed on her 
face steadily and scrutinizingly— her faee, line by line, spell- 
ing out the meaning, veiy slowly but very surely. 

Gretchen saw that the princess herself was very pale — that her 
dead black hair and eyes made her face look unnaturally 'white. 
Her eyelids w^ere heavy, too, but the rich curve of her lips was 
brightly red as ever. 

After that one long look into Gretchen’s face, Tryphosa let go 
the hand she held, and with a bitter sigh turned aside. Then she 
sat down, asking Gretchen with a movement to do the same. 

It was all very solemn and very mysterious, thought Gretchen ; 
beginning inwardly to wonder wdiy she had been sent for, and when 
the princess 'svas going to break the long silence that followed. 

The princess was watching the door, with an evident look of ex- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


237 


pectancy on her face. Gretchen found herself watching the door 
too, and wondering with trepidation who or what tiie princess was 
waiting for. 

The door opened, and there entered — a tray of didcetia, borne by 
a servant. Could that have been what the princess was waiting for? 
Yes, evidently and obviously. A gradual look of satisfaction suf- 
fused Tryphosa’s face. She superintended the placing of the dish, 
and with a whispered direction to the servant, dismissed him from 
the room. 

When the door was closed again, it was evident that the real busi- 
ness of the evening was going to begin. Princess Tryphosa’s nation 
has borrowed many Turkish habits ; and no Turk will proceed to 
business, or pronounce a word upon any subject of importance, un- 
til the guest has partaken of refreshment. 

Gretchen found herself helped to some sickly sweet stuff, which 
she detested at the first mouthful. 

Tryphosa did not speak until after her spoon had travelled sev- 
eral times up and down between her lips and the little silver plate. 
What she said then was sufficiently startling. 

“Mademoiselle, %ve ought to hate each other.” 

“I hope not,” said Gretchen, hastily putting down her plate. 
She had not allowed herself to make any conjectures as to what 
Tryphosa’s meaning might be in sending for her thus. She had 
come here with much curiosity, some anxiety, and a little uncertain, 
undefined hope. 

Tryphosa swallowed another mouthful of the clukeiia, and said, 
“You are very beautiful — ” 

She said it merely as if stating a bare fact, not with flattery, and 
scarcely with bitterness. 

“And are you not beautiful yourself ?” said Gretchen, flushing; 
“ and is that a reason why we should hate each other?” 

“And he thinks so.” 

It was a continuation of her former phrase upon which the prin- 
cess was still engaged. 

The flush spread higher on Gretchen’s face, but she kept silent. 

“I ought to hate you,” said the princess, in her deep, calm voice; 
“ but I liked you at first, and I cannot change so soon.” 

The thought in Trypliosa’s mind, \yhich she intended to express, 
was, that having begun by liking Gretchen, it would have taken her 
too long to undo that liking and to mature a dislike in its place, 

“ If I had known what you were going to do, I should have begun 
by hating you.” 

“ And what have I done?’ 

Oh, the fixed stare of those great dark eyes ! It was hard to bear 
it unflinchingly. The princess very deliberately put down her sil- 
ver plate, and quite as deliberately took up a feather fan before she 
^3poke. 

“You have taken away from me the man I love; you have robbed 
me of.the.love of Istvan Tolnay.” 

The word was spoken at last, the name was said; their eyes met 


238 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Steadily. They looked at each other, these two women, as only ri- 
vals can look— the one so splendidly dark, the other so gloriously 
fair; the one like light, the other like shade, yet both so beautiful. 
The black eyes were the deepest, the most intense in the heat of 
their slow-smouldering tire ; but the gray eyes could flash as bright- 
ly, and that slight figure could draw itself up with as much proud 
self-reliance. 

“And you sent for me to tell me that?” said Gretchen, in a voice 
which was hardly quite steady* 

This sudden attack, so cruelly plain, so plainly pathetic, seized 
upon her soul with a fearful strength. It was too little European, 
too much Oriental ; there was not enough of regard paid to the po- 
lite usages of society, and there was too much of bare, unadorned, 
purely human feeling. Human feeling in this undisguised state is 
so seldom to be seen nowadays, smothered as it is in conventional 
wrappings six-fold thick, that when it is seen out of its wrappings 
it startles us disagreeably, as something jarring, something raw- 
something too strong, too coarsely vigorous, for our tenderly bred 
nerves. 

“ Yes, I have sent for you to tell you that, mademoiselle.” 

“ Then, princess, I think I shall go home,” said Gretchen, rising. 

“I think not,” said the princess. 

“And why not, pray?” 

Tryphosa’s eyes travelled round the room, and came back to 
Gretchen. 

“ Because the door is locked.” 

“I don't believe it,” said Gretchen. and she went to the door and 
tried it. The handle moved freely, but the door remained fixed. 
She remembered now that whispered word of direction to the serv- 
ant, and a sort of terror came over her. Was she caught in a trap? 

She went to the window; it was half closed, and from the hill-side 
opposite, where the moonlight was creeping down, chary of its pre- 
cious beams, the sound of the viaSWng Flugelhorn still floated dis- 
mally on the air. 

“I can call for somebody to open the door,” she said, turning to 
Tryphosa. “I think I shall call.” 

“You will not.” 

The words were very slowly said, very calmly, and yet very de- 
cidedly. 

They took hold of Gretchen as if they had been living hands. 
She began to understand the latent strength which existed deep 
down in this woman’s soul— so deep down that a reflection of it 
rarely reached the surface. 

“1 shall not let you go,” said Tryphosa, in the same subdued 
voice, “until you have told me what I want to know, and until I 
have told what- you must know. Let us not argue. I mean to do 
it, and I am very desperate. ” 

Gretchen felt that what she said was true, and that what she 
meant to do she Avould do. Against her own positive will she 
obeyed. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


239 


She sat down again impatiently, and, snatching up the second 
feather fan from the table, began to fan her face. 

“Princess,” she said, with a sort of rebellious resignation, “if 
you have indeed any questions to ask me, please ask them quickly. 
Though you have me in your power at this moment, you cannot in- 
tend to keep me prisoner all night, ” 

As she said it, her eyes fell on the spot from which she had just 
lifted the fan: there was a tiny dagger lying there, stuck in an en- 
amelled sheath. It was the same which the small Codran was ac- 
customed to wear at his belt. Gretchen had drawn it once when 
she was playing with the boy, and she knew that the point was of 
sharp bright steel. 

The memory of that bright point grew distinct before her at this 
moment. Thinking of it in connection with that calm g?ze of de- 
spair in Tryphosa’s eyes, the bright steel point was by no means re- 
assuring. 

“lam very desperate,” Tryphosa had said, and she had said it so 
quietly that the words sounded all the more terrible. 

Gretchen glanced at that well-shaped hand which held the feather 
fan just now: it could hold that little dagger as firmly, no doubt. 

She had grown a shade paler, but she did not move from her 
place; she remained wdth her eyes fixed on the jewelled knife, too 
proud to show the alarm which might turn out to be a foolish fear, 
and yet not quite able to look away from that narrow colored case 
where lay hidden from sight that bright point of steel. It was a 
consoling reflection, at any rate, to think that, even crediting the 
princess with so blood-thirsty an intention, the execution was not 
likely to be rapid. There certainly would be a margin left for de- 
fence. 

Gretchen had asked the princess to put her questions quickly, 
and Tryphosa was honestly anxious to follow the demand ; but the 
very wwd “quick” sounded like irony when applied to Tryphosa. 

“ Yes, I am going to tell you quickly,” she said, speaking rather ’ 
slower than usual. “It is very simple, my question; has 1st van 
Tolnay told you that he loves you?” 

“You have no right to ask me that,” cried Gretchen, meeting 
Tryphosa’s gaze. “I refuse to answer your question.” 

“ Has Istvan Tolnay told you that he loves you?” 

Gretchen kept silent. 

Tryphosa repeated the question a third time, never removing her 
eyes from Gretchen’s face. 

Again that something undefined, which she could not explain, 
and from which she could not escape, took hold of her, and Gret- 
chen answered, impatiently, 

“Yes, he has.” 

Not the smallest change became visible in Tryphosa’s face: she 
was quite aware of the answer, but she had put it on one side, as it 
were, for later consideration, being still busy with something else. 

“I have a right to the question, and j^ou shall hear what it is 
presently^” 


240 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


There was a short silence. In spite of all her fears, Gretchcn felt 
curious. The soft flutter of the fans was the only sound in the 
room. Tryphosa’s fan fluttered slowly, ponderously, in long calm 
sweeps; Gretchen’s fan moved restlessly, quivering in her hand like 
an imprisoned bird, up and down, in short, feverish, strokes, restless 
and unequal. 

They had been silent over a minute, when Tr5’^phosa stopped fan- 
ning herself, and clasped her two hands against her breast with a 
sort of well-pondered vehemence. Her lips were trembling, and her 
eyebrows drawn together with a painful contraction. 

‘ ‘ My God !” she muttered. ‘ ‘ He has told her that he loves her. 
That is my death !” 

She paused for a minute, then she raised her eyes again ; the 
heavy lids, heavily fringed, rolled up slowly — a curtain which dis- 
closed a world of beauty below. 

“ And you? Do you think you will marry him?” 

Did she think she would marry him ? why, that was the very ques- 
tion which had been Gretchen’s torment throughout every weary 
hour of this weary day; that was the question to which since morn- 
ing she had vainly sought to find an answer. 

“Don’t ask me — oh, I don’t know,” she answered, hurriedly. 

“You don’t know? then I shall tell you: you dare not marry 
him!” 

“And why not?” 

At the dehance her pride had risen already, armed to the teeth in 
its own defence. Under this new phase of danger she forgot even 
her fear of that sharp steel point. 

To her surprise, she. was reminded of it in the next instant. 

For some minutes past Tryphosa had been intently wondering 
what could be the meaning of the fixed gaze which Grctchen had 
fastened upon the little dagger on the table. She had reached a 
satisfactory conclusion now. 

“I know what you are afraid of, mademoiselle,” she said; “you 
are afraid of that knife and of my despair. You think I am going 
to stab you.” 

This, again, was very plain — fearfully plain ; and Gretchen re- 
coiled, as if the words had been a blow. 

The situation was so painfully intense that nothing but an at- 
tempt at lightness could relieve the strain of tension. Gretchen 
made that attempt, 

“ I don’t think you would succeed,” she laughed, a little harshly. 
“ It would take you too long to do it.” 

“ Too long? Do 5^ou think so? No, it is not that. If I want to 
do a thing, I do it. It may take long, but 1 ^ do it. It does not 
matter whether a thing is done slowly or quickly— only that it is 
done. It is not that,” went on the princess, heavily, reasoning out 
the point in question— heavily but unfailingly; “ let us not be fool- 
ish. It is only that it would be no good. He would hate me for 
having jstabbed the woman he loves; for he loves you— now. If 
you are afraid of that knife, throw it away.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


241 


Gretchen remained scornfully silent; slie did not even look to- 
wards the knife. 

^ The original question appeared to have become merged into this 
side-question. Gretchen, therefore, was not a little puzzled wheu 
the princess now repeated, 

“ Why not? I shall tell you why not.” 

She had forgotten her exact words, but Tryphosa never forgot 
anything she had once thoroughly understood. 

“You dare not marry 1st van Tolnay, because I have a better right 
to him. You have taken him away from me.^’ 

“ I have not taken him away; he has taken himself away.” 

“Will you listen to what I say? I say I have a better right to 
him. He saw me before he saw you, and he loved me before he 
loved you. And that is not all; he promised to marry me long be- 
fore he knew that you existed.” 

An exclamation.of disbelief broke from Gretchen’s lips. She had 
known of the last year’s flirtation between Tryphosa and Tolnay; 
she had even this year watched its last lingering remnants; but 
she had never guessed at anything so grave as this, at promises 
made and not held. The thing M^as too monstrous to be grasped. 
Was this not only the invention of a jealous woman? 

“Listen; this is not yet all. I have more rights than this. I 
have given up everything for him.” The princess sat up on the 
sofa now, and the hand which held the feather fan trembled. “ I 
have waited patiently for years for him. I have allowed my name 
to be talked of lightly for his sake. I have made my child father- 
less. I have sacrificed ’’—there was a momentary pause, which 
seemed to promise a climax — “I have sacrificed my journey to 
Paris this year — and all for him.” 

There was a touch of absurdity, after all, in the midst of the 
pathos. But to a Roumanian there was nothing ludicrous about it. 
To sacrifice a Parisian journey is to sacrifice something sacred, some- 
thing inestimably precious ; for to Roumanian women the word 
“Paris” is as sweet as the word “paradise” — perhaps if the truth 
were known, sweeter. 

“ I have made my child fatherless ” — those were the words whkh 
struck Gretchen’s ear. She heard no others, and she stared with 
horror at the princess, and from the princess to the jewelled sheath 
on the table. “ What?” she stammered, trembling; “you have— you 
have ” — she could not finish her own extravagant thought. She re- 
covered herself, and asked, “ When did your husband die?” 

A slow stare was the answer. 

“My husband die? He is not dead.” 

“Not dead?” Qi’etchen got to her feet shivering. “Princess 
Tryphosa, are you not a widow?” 

“He is not dead, he is alive. He lives in Bucharest. We are 
separated; but I see him often. We are very good friends.” 

Gretchen stood aghast, feeling as if she had been suddenly plunged 
into ice-cold water, which had cut her breath short for a moment. 
Was it her sense of hearing or her sense of understanding which 

16 


242 


TUE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


was at fault? Did she hear aright? Of course she heard aright; it 
was only her ignorance which was to blame. She had not mastered 
the A B C of the strange Roumanian nation.' Tryphosa’s words 
were a shock to her own stern principles; but, in point of fact, the 
princess was rather behindhand in this matter. Most Roumanian 
women of her age have two husbands alive at a time; and any lady 
who contents herself with conjugal affection is looked upon as ec- 
centric, unfashionable, not to say dowdy. It is nothing at all un- 
usual in a Bucharest salon to see a lady enter on the arm of her 
third husband, smilingly return the courteous bows of her two first 
lords, and in the course of the evening perhaps begin to throw lan- 
guishing glances towards the one destined to become her fourth. 

Tryphosa, seeing Gretchen’s too evident distress, good-naturedly 
explained, 

“I married very young; not because I wanted, but because they 
all wanted it, and really it was not worth while fighting about it. I 
could have got separated any day I liked, for in our country it is made 
easy for us women; but I should not have taken the trouble, only 
— I met Istvan Tolnay. I saw him one year, and I loved him the 
next year; I shall be forced to love him all my life.” 

She spoke in a tone of conviction ; and, no doubt, she spoke truly. 
Tryphosa would never find time for more than one passion in a life- 
time. 

It was a hard moment for Gretchen. Two feelings fought within 
her — disgust and pity. She was horrified at Tryphosa’s confession; 
she was touched by her boundless love. 

“What is it you want of me?” she asked, in a whisper. 

The princess reflected deeply. “ Justice,” she said, at last. 

“ I do not understand you.” 

“He has sworn that he will marry me. He has not sworn it once, 
but twenty times. Do you not see that I am ruined if he does not 
hold to what he has sworn?” 

“If he has sworn it he will keep it, of course. What is the use 
of addressing me?” 

The princess only shook her head. “ What I ask of you is, that 
yQU should promise not to marry him.” 

“ I will not bind myself by any promise,” said Gretchen, between 
pride and perplexity. “ Let me go now, princess — I have listened 
long enough.” 

“You must listen fo me longer,” said the princess. “You cannot 
do me this injustice; you love justice and you love truth.” 

“But is this truth ?’‘^ thought* Gretchen, in an agony of doubt. 

Had Tryphosji modified the crudeness of her story Gretchen might 
have been convinced; but when thus presented to her in all the hid- 
eousness of broken promises and heartless desertion, the inexperi- 
enced girl, shocked and disgusted, shrank back, taking refuge in 
disbelief. However much she might have sighed for liberty a few 
hours since, her pride revolted agmnst having the gift forced on her 
by another woman. Doubts were obscuring her mind. To reject 
Tryphosa’s demand, or to throw over Istvan Tolnay after having 


THE YrATERS OF HERCULES. 


243 


thus played fas^ and loose with him — of the two which would be 
the greater sin?” 

Every trifle grew fearfully weighty at this moment. Her mother’s 
words, Kurt’s debts, rose up and confronted her. 

“It would be no good my promising, ” she said, at last ; “that 
would not give you back his love. ” 

“It would be some good;” and the princess frowned as if in heavy 
thought. “ He loves you now, but he would come back to me in 
time. I know it ; he cannot be true to any woman for long. ” 

“You say that, and yet you love him?” 

“ I do not think he is a good man — I think he is bad ; and yet I 
love him — madly.” 

There was a fearful suggestion of suppressed strength in that one 
word. 

“I would sacriflce everything in the world for the sake of my 
child, but I would sacriflce my child for the sake of him. Do you 
believe now that I love him?” 

There was no answer possible — none that would not have sounded 
weak after those slow, burning words. The revelation of passion 
beneath this sluggish surface was overwhelming; it stunned Gret- 
chen for a moment. 

“Will you give me the promise now?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know — I don’t know!” cried Gretchen, flinging her 
hands over her face. “ Let me think.” 

“ As long as you like.” 

How strange the deliberate words sounded after the last that had 
been said 1 The request appeared perfectly natural to Tryphosa : 
she was accustomed to think so much and so slowly herself, that it 
was not surprising to hear Gretchen say, “Let me think.” 

She took up her fan again. Her features were heavily passive, 
but the fingers which closed over the handle clutched it convul- 
sively. 

She would wait like that for an hour with perfect patience. 
Gretchen felt it; she would wait like that the whole night immov- 
ably. Princess Tryphosa’s patience filled her vdth a blank hopeless- 
ness. It was strange that, after all her agonies of to-day she should 
not grasp at the promise as a heaven-sent means of escape; and yet 
it was not so very strange either, for the mystery of a woman’s heart 
is the only labyrinth to which no clew has been invented, nor ever 
will be found. Gretchen had much obstinacy, and she felt she 
would do a great deal rather than be forced into a promise; but her 
obstinacy beside that of the princess was like the resistance of a 
prickly hedge beside that of a wall of granite blocks. One of the 
two must break the silence, and she knew that Princess Tryphosa 
would not do so. 

Gretchen removed her hands and made one more attempt. 

“ It is no use asking me to promise,” she said. “ If it is true that 
Baron Tolnay has sworn that he will marry you, then why do you 
not appeal straight to him?” _ . , rr, , 

“Do you think that I have not appealed to lum?” said Tryphosa, 


244 


THE WATERS OF UERCULES. 


with a sort of bitter frankness. “I sent him word that he was to 
come to me to-day, and he has not come. I asked for five minutes’ 
interview ; he has taken no notice. I begged for one sign from him ; 
he has given me none. That is the way lie spurns me now.” 

The words might have sounded like abject humility, but for the 
sullen pride with which the admission was made. 

Gretchen stood uncertain, wondering how it was to end. She felt 
that Tryphosa w^as reading her face again with that searching look. 
The fan had stopped moving; a new thought was dawning in Try- 
phosa’s mind. After a little it reached the surface. Gretchen saw 
the light in her eyes before she was surprised by the unexpected 
question. 

“Tell me this: do you love Istvan Tolnay?” 

The fixed stare was hard to stand, but Gretchen would not drop 
her eyes. She gazed back steadily, though she felt the color ebbing 
from her cheek. That question at least she had a right not to an- 
swer : she stood and stared back at her questioner. 

Tryphosa raised the fan to her lips, and with her teeth slowly 
dragged out one of the scarlet feathers of the edge. It was the only 
sign she gave of the suspense which was devouring her ; but it told 
more than sighs and tears could have told. The way in which it 
was done made Gretchen shudder and look back from the princess 
to the enamelled sheath on the table. Yes, that woman was quite 
capable of a heroic crime. 

“I see,” said the princess, after a long pause — “ I see; of course 
you love him. It could not be otherwise.” 

A sudden revulsion of feeling came over Gretchen ; every pulse 
throbbed tumultuously — she seemed to lose sight and hearing. 

“No, I do not love him!” she cried, passionately, thrown off her 
guard for the moment. “I do not love Baron Tolnay. I swear 
that he is nothing to me!” And then the mist seemed to clear from 
her e5'^es, and she saw Tryphosa bending forward, wfith the red 
feather still held bitten between her teeth. 

There was no triumph in her eyes: wide open and dull, they were 
fixed full on Gretchen’s face. It was impossible to read whether 
displeasure or satisfaction lay underneath that dull surface. Per- 
haps she was enraged, perhaps she felt victorious; but there was 
nothing in her eyes as yet. She unclosed her teeth and slowly re- 
leased the scarlet feather. It fluttered softly to the ground, and lay 
there on the carpet at her feet, like a vivid drop of warm heart’s- 
blood shed by some cruel hand. 


THE WATEIIS OF HERCULES. 


245 


CHAPTER XXXII. 
istvan’s stirrup-cup. 

“Not to be wearied, not to be deterred, 

Not to be overcome.” — Soutuey. 

The autumn morning was slowly dawning into day, chill, and 
scarcely light enough to show clearly the horns, and skins, and 
other sportsmanlike trophies which decorated the room where Ist- 
van Tolnay was taking a hasty breakfast. 

Outside the air was raw; the light morning mist still hovered 
over the valley, rolling slowly down the hill-side, to leave every mo- 
ment a new breadth of glistening forest and sharp-cut rock distinct 
in the cold air. It was one of those cautious mornings which hold 
out no promises, and which yet are more to be relied on than many 
a red-cheeked dawn that jumps out of bed in a hurry and wakes all 
the world with sunshiny smiles, but who finds before long that he 
has overtaxed his spirits, and generally ends by going into a fit of 
sulks or breaking into a storm of ill-tempered tears. 

1st van Tolnay, as he took his breakfast, in which red wine ap- 
peared to be the principal feature, threw more than one glance out 
of the window, and decided that it was just the right sort of day 
for their expedition. 

The room bore the stamp of wealth, of luxury even, in every de- 
tail. It spoke of the owner’s tastes. Besides the trophies on the 
Avails, there was a bear-skin on the ground; there were guns and 
whips, and a perfectly bewildering amount of smoking appliances. 
Also there was an extensive collection of photographs, exclusively 
female, which, from the details of their attire — sometimes the scan- 
tiness of such details — were unmistakably theatrical. They were 
but dimly seen in this dawning light; and the figure of Istvan him- 
self was still veiled in the departing shadow. Pie wore a costume 
which, by the inhabitants of the place, was considered to be sports- 
manlike, and which, by Mr, Howard, had long ago been condemned 
as “coxcomby” and bad form. However that might be, the gray- 
and-green suit and feathered hat were most particularly becoming 
to the style of this young Hungarian’s looks. Upon everybody else 
the yellow gaiters would have looked outre; but Istvan wore them 
in such a way that it was impossible to look at the calves of his 
legs with entire disapproval. 

Although he was eating his breakfast with as good an appetite 
as usual, and although the red wine was in no danger of being neg- 
lected, Istvan was doing something most unusual with him — he was 
thinking. 


246 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Two days ago be had confessed his love to Gretchen; and her 
sudden withdrawal and persistent avoidance of him during the 
homeward walk considerably puzzled him, although it can hardly 
be said to have seriously alarmed hhn. This coyness and half- 
repelling reluctanee was but fuel thrown on a fire, which already 
burned high: a little touch of difficulty gave a new charm to the 
wooing of this German girl. It suited his imaginative tempera- 
ment — it was a change and a relief from his relations with Try- 
phosa; for if difficulty spurred Istvan, too great ease made him re- 
lax. It is probable that the dreadful earnestness of the love which 
Tryphosa offered him had been the reason of his so rapidly cooling 
towards her. It oppressed him to be loved in that tragically seri- 
ous manner. Of course he liked to be loved by a woman ; but, the 
climax once passed, he preferred to treat the matter somewhat more 
lightly, and, above all, somewhat more expeditiously. 

For one moment in the cave Istvan’s self-confidence had tottered. 
The figure of the short-sighted lawyer had seemed to obscure his 
path; but it had only been for one moment. His nature wa*s elas- 
tic, and his vanity well-nigh invincible. A very little reflection had 
told him that the idea of that man being his rival was no more than 
an amusing thought, to be laughed at and dismissed. Just put 
his personal advantages opposite to those of Dr. Komers, and what 
woman could hesitate? Let alone worldly advantages, Istvan, to do 
him justice, thought a great deal more of the personal than of the 
worldly advantages. He had been so used to riches all his life 
that he set no store by them. If he had set more store by them, 
he surely would have hesitated a little longer before abandoning the 
fabulously rich Koumanian princess for the sake of a penniless Ger- 
man girl. His passion of the moment had the same effect as the 
light of a brightly burning lamp— it made everything very distinct 
all around it, as far as the rays fall, and very dark all beyond. It is 
only that circle of light which exists for the moment, as long as the 
wick has food enough to burn. 

He had begun by paying attention to Gretchen, because he was 
struck by her beauty, because it was agreeable and amusing to pay 
her attention, and because he had no principles which forbade him 
to do an agreeable and amusing thing, even if thereby he was break- 
ing his faith towards another woman. She had piqued him by the 
force of contrast. She was different in disposition, in coloring, in 
everything, from the women he was accustomed to meet; different, 
in particular, from the last woman he had loved. There could be 
no sharper contrast than Tryphosa and Gretchen ; and if he had 
never known Tryphosa, Istvan might never have loved Gretchen 
so hotly as he loved her now. But it was not merely with other 
women that she contrasted ; she embodied a contrast in herself. 
This girl, who looked like an Ophelia and talked like a philoso- 
pher, who moved like an Undine and argued like a logician, had 
from the first moment caught his fancy. The harmonious discord 
which she presented was just of the sort to rouse Istvan’s interest. 
The very first words she had ever addressed to him had surprised 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


247 


him almost as much 'as though a rosebud had opened its petals to 
remark that two and two make four, and that therefore it stood to 
reason that the half of four was two. 

Istvan had begun, therefore, to pay attention to Gretchen because 
it was pleasant, and he had gone on because it became more pleasant. 

Very likely it was only quite lately that he had reached the point 
of confessing to himself that his promises to Tryphosa were to 
count as nothing. There was no struggle to fight through, no ago- 
nies of indecision, before the wrong could triumph over the right. 
Nothing of the sort. Those promises were torn up by the root as 
easily as a plant is torn up out of the sand. It was a puzzling phe- 
nomenon, but it was true. Gretchen had once wondered what ele- 
ment there was missing in Istvan’s nature, the want of which made 
him different from other men. One element certainly had been 
left out in his composition, but Gretchen had not yet found it out 
by name. His was a face which no line of care could ever mark, 
which no trouble could ever alter; his fancy it was which was hot, 
and his heart which was cold — not so much cold as light, and capri- 
cious in its lightness. 

But though he had arrived at confessing to himself that his 
promises were to count as nothing, he had meant that Tryphosa 
was not quite yet to know this truth. Not that he had taken any 
precautions against her knowing it — it was not in him to do so. It 
was an impossibility to him, physical and moral, fo look ahead of 
the present moment. Neither had he made any effort to see Gret- 
chen in the course of yesterday, so as to get the final answer from 
her lips. He preferred that the opportunity should come naturally, 
and he knew that it must come naturally to-day. 

Bad weather would have crossed his plans: but the long-looked- 
for or long-dreaded rain was not in the sky to-day: it was cloudless 
and of a keen blue, and the mists were rolling lower every instant. 
The whiff of air that came in by the window brought joy and hope 
on its wings; it quickened his pulses and braced his nerves. Istvan 
Tolnay felt very sanguine. 

“One more glass of wine,” he said, aloud. “ Let this be my stir- 
rup-cup; and then. Excelsior!” 

He took up the bottle as he spoke : the red wine gurgled through 
the throat of olive-green glass. He raised the full glass to his lips, 
but in the same moment he turned his head, for the door-handle 
was slowly moving. Slowly, very slowly, the door glided open. 

Istvan muttered something between his teeth, and put down the 
untouched glass so sharply that some drops of red wine splashed 
over the edge — for Princess Tryphosa was standing before him. 

It was Princess Tryphosa ; but it was not the glowing sultana 
whose beauty but a few weeks ago had still held the power of re- 
viving for a moment the embers of a dead love; neither was it the 
sobbing woman who had wept at the foot of the beech-tree, nor the 
calmly'^ lesperate woman who had sat opposite to Gretchen last night 
with the dagger-point between them. Her misery had reached an- 
other stage. She was dry-eyed and haggard; she was colorless and 


248 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


worn in face. Her hair was rough and her dress was crushed and 
unsightly. She had aged ten years in a few hours. Her eyes had 
not closed for a moment. All night she had sat, and pondered, and 
reflected, feeling about carefully for some way out of the straits of 
her despair. Gretchen had said, “Why do you not appeal to him 
straight?” and those words had remained fastened in her mind. Of 
course she had appealed to him already ; but for weeks past she had 
kept silent. One last and desperate appeal might yet save her. She 
was not a woman to leave any stone, however heavy, unturned. The 
curious mixture of laziness and energy, of languor and passion, which 
were the elements of her nature, gave her a strength of purpose 
which, at first sight, was not to be suspected. By morning she had 
matured not only her plan but also the details. She had resolved 
that she should not go alone — that she should take her child with 
her. Her love for her child was very genuine of its kind; but it 
was not maternal affection which was the cause of the little Codran 
having been roused out of his sleep at daybreak, and dragged up 
out of his soft cushions. Instinct told her that that small curly 
head would play a useful part in the scene which she was deliberate- 
ly going to provoke. Never had she been so sincerely grateful to 
Providence for having given her a pretty boy for her son as to-day, 
when she believed that his pretty looks might help her to touch 
Istvan Tolnay’s heart, or rather to fire his fancy. In a sort of dim 
and far-off way she felt aware that she was not beautiful to-day, and 
some impulse moved her to put her son’s beauty in place of her own. 
Here, again, it was her knowledge of the man which guided her. 

Her appearance came in such harsh contrast to his thoughts of a 
minute ago, that Istvan for a moment seemed to have lost the pow- 
er of speech. He stared at the white-faced woman, and the sleepy 
child which clung to her hand, as if he did not know them. But 
long before Tryphosa had succeeded in speaking, he had recovered 
himself. 

‘ ‘ Princess ! Y ou here ! Is it possible ?” 

The princess shut the door as slowly as she had opened it, and 
came forward towards him. 

“What imprudence! The servants might have seen you!” 

The princess stood still, with her child drawn to her side, and 
looked back at him, still searching for words, and struggling for ex- 
pression of what she felt and wanted to show. She would have pre- 
ferred to give some sign more passionate and moving; but she had 
grown so used to slowness that, even at a moment as critical as was 
this one, she was unable to move or to speak quickly. It was too 
unaccustomed and too strange. 

“ The servants liam seen me,” she said at last. “ Do you think I 
would stop at that?” 

Istvan understood now that she was desperate; and as for the rest, 
he did not much care. His conduct had never been shaped to please 
public opinion, and if Tryphosa could brave the world, so could he. 
Prudence was a cloak which sat ill upon him, and Tryphosa saw 
how ill it sat. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


249 


“You were not usually so prudent, Istvan, when you used to 
climb to my window in order to get a smile, and when you used to 
pick up the flowers I dropped, under my husband’s eyes. Do you 
remember that time?” 

“Excuse my surprise,” said Istvan, with convenient evasion, and 
still feigning a stupefaction which he had already ceased to feel; 
“ but you never leave the house so early as this.” 

“ And when you used to carry my hair in a locket,” she went on, 
with that despairing tenacity of hers. “ There is other hair in the 
locket now, I suppose?” 

“Nonsense, Tryphosa! there is not.” 

“And you used not to go to mountains at that time, or, if you 
went, it was with your gun and your dog alone.” 

“ My gun and my dog have been to the mountains often enough 
this summer,” he said, sullenly. “I am not a man to be tied to 
apron-strings.” 

“ You are going to the mountains again; you are going to-day — 
now. I see it by your dress, and I knew it before; that is why I 
came so early.” 

“I am going for a walk.” 

“You are going to the mountains, and Mademoiselle Mohr is go- 
ing also.” 

“ She may be — I don’t know.” 

Another long stare from her eyes, before her lips said, doggedly, 

“ She is, and you do know.” 

He turned with an oath upon his lips. 

“ Cursed be your obstinacy! Have it then, since you will; she is 
going, and I do know it.” 

“I thought so,” said Tryphosa, calmly. “And what do you 
mean to do about me?” 

“Mean? I don’t mean anything. I don’t know what I mean, 
and I can’t tell you. It is stronger than I am, do you hear? It is 
no good speaking to me at all.” 

“ You mean to break your promises?” 

The words, plainly spoken, were ugly even to Istvan’s ears; he 
turned, and taking up his soft hat, began crushing it up between his 
hands. 

The small Codran, finding his mother’s conversation and move- 
ments excessively wearisome, had wandered off towards the corner, 
and after affectionately pulling handfuls of hair out of the rugged 
bear-skin, had fallen asleep upon it. His mother, going towards 
him, dragged him up and drew him to her side. If she had had 
more leisure, she would certainly have felt pity for the small victim ; 
but at this moment he was to her no more than a piece of decora- 
tion necessary for the scene. 

“Have yoii never thought, Baron Tolnay, that I am not a woman 
to let myself be abandoned in this way?” she asked. 

“ Don’t threaten me, Tryphosa!” and she saw a gleam in his eye— 
“don’t threaten me; if you are desperate, so am I.” 

“Look at my child; I made him fatherless— for your sake.” 


250 


TUE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“I never asked you to do it,” he said, speaking wildly. It was a 
brutal thing to say, after all that had passed between them. Even 
he could not have said it had he not been half out of his senses at 
the moment. He certainly could not have said it if she had looked 
at this moment as she had looked that evening when he had taken 
the pomegranate flower from her hair. She had been beautiful 
then; she was scarcely so now. The voluptuous glow of coloring 
about her seemed faded. She was a woman who imperiously de- 
manded warm-tinted, luxurious surroundings. This cold morning 
light did not suit her; the sharp air seemed to chill her; her face 
looked old and hard; her very eyes w'ere sunken. She was like 
any other of her countrywomen who has just missed being beauti- 
ful. Moreover, she was unwittingly pursuing the very course 
which with Tolnay was most fatal; she was pressing him to a dis- 
tinct answer, and this pressure made him furious. 

“You did ask me to do it on your knees. 1st van, shall I kneel 
to you now?” 

‘ ‘ Let me go — let me go !” cried Istvan, tearing away his arm from 
the grasp of her clinging hand. 

“Yes, I shall let you go. I am not strong enough to hold you 
with my hands ; but rid of me you shall never be. Oh, Istvan ! you 
should not have loved me — you should have loved some woman 
w’hose heart is as light as your own. Istvan, listen to me : by all the 
sacrifices which I have made, by my love to my son, by the memory 
of your love to me, I conjure you, listen to me!” 

“Enough, enough!” cried Istvan, turning from her — for the 
gaze of those stupid, passionate eyes was oppressive even to him — 
“enough, Tryphosa; it is late, and I must go.” 

“You must go— to her. To tell her that you love her.” 

“I am accountable to none for what I may say or do.” 

“You have told her already that you love her.” 

“ Think what you like.” 

“ And I could tell you another thing.” 

“ Could you? Ha! what is that?” 

She had come a step nearer, mechanically dragging her sleepy 
child beside her. Now she stopped, and eyed him attentively. 

“Do you think that she loves you?” 

“ I shall hear to-day;” and a smile of confidence flickered across 
his features. 

“ I can tell you.” 

“Ah!” He faced her, and in his eyes there was nothing now but 
an expeetant light. The hatred, the anger, the reckless cruelty were 
all held at bay for one moment by breathless suspense. He might 
almost have been mistaken, as he stood there, for an honest and 
true-hearted lover, so little power had his passions of stamping their 
mark on his face. And yet at this moment it Avas that his cruelty 
reached the point of climax. That expectant light in his eyes meant 
death to Tryphosa — a more bitter death than his fury of a minute 
ago. He viewed her only as the person who could give him in- 
formation he wanted,vand as such only he looked at her with interest. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


251 


The answer was long in coming, but it came at last. 

“ I will tell you, then: she does not love you.” 

The words were dropped slowly, heavily, as if each word had 
been a leaden weight falling to the ground. 

The light died out of Istvan’s eyes, only to blaze up again more 
hotly. 

“You lie! She does love me. I know it — it must be.” 

He might as well have run his head against a rock. Tryphosa 
answered, immovably as before, 

“ She does not love you.” 

This time he turned livid pale. He knew Tryphosa too well to 
doubt her plain statement. He stood speechless, his hands slowly 
clinching by his sides, and a rush of tumultuous thought coursing 
fast and furious through his brain. 

Tryphosa watched him ; she had tried *an experiment, and she was 
watching to see how it would work. 

Suddenly upon the paleness came a painfully vivid flush of red- 
he sprang forward towards her and caught her by the wrist. 

“Is this your revenge?” he demanded, violently. “Is this to 
torture me? Is it your jealousy that makes you speak? or mad- 
ness? or is it the truth? Which is it? I must know it now — at 
once.” 

She did not shrink or waver as he touched her. There was the 
truth written plainly in her eyes, though she made no movement 
wdth her lips; and Istvan saw it. He dropped her hand and turned 
away, taking two steps in the room and back again, with a new and 
sudden restlessness of manner. 

“How do you know this? Quick, quick, quick!” 

Quickness was out of her power, but she answered his question 
clearly enough. 

“She told me so herself; she was with me last night. I asked 
her, and she told me.” 

“Ha, ha! — impossible!” he laughed; harshly. “She told you 
that— and what else?” 

“She told me that,” said the princess, slowly, “and she told me 
nothing else.” 

“You have something more to say — say it at once.” 

“ She told me nothing else, but I have guessed.” 

“ Oh, speak!” He stamped with his foot on the ground. 

“I think that she loves some one else.” 

Istvan’s teeth clinched, and he muttered a brutal curse. 

“I am certain of it; she loves some one else, and he is a better 
man than you.” 

“Do not speak his name!” cried Tolnajr, with sudden vehemence 
and a look of hatred almost diabolical in its malice. That first 
dawn of doubt which had risen the other day in the cave had pre- 
pared the way for this. That misgiving came to life again, and this 
time full-grown and near; not a mere dim, far-off possibility, which 
he had laughed at and scorned. The complacent self-confidence of 
half an hour ago made this fall from the height the more rude; the 


252 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


joyous hopefulness which had buoyed him up made this mortifica- 
tion the more intolerable. When that thought had first presented 
itself for consideration, he had dismissed it easily, for he had noth- 
ing but his own passing impression to go by, and vanity had argued 
eloquently against it; now this same thought was supported by 
Tryphosa’s judgment; and Tryphosa’s conclusions were arrived at 
slowly, but unfailingly. 

“Do not speak his name!” he had cried, “I will not hear it; the 
thought is maddening. I hated that man from the first day. I will 
— yes, I will.” 

His voice was so loud that the terrified Codran set up a howl of 
distress; but the angry tone broke otf suddenly, and Istvan paced 
the room with his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes fixed on 
the ground. He stopped by the table, and lifting the glass to his 
lips, drank otf the wine, then put down the empty glass with such 
vehemence that the thin stem was shattered, and the upper half 
rolled broken to the ground. 

Codran stopped crying, and detaching himself from liis mother’s 
hand, proceeded to make himself happy on the floor with the broken 
glass and the few drops of wine which still lingered about it. 

Istvan took up his hat and stick abstractedly, as if he had forgot- 
ten that he was not alone in the room. 

He would not have looked at Tryphosa again, if she had not 
stopped him as he was passing her on his way to the door. 

“ Where are you going to, Istvan?” 

“To the mountains,” he said, with a hard smile. 

“To the mountains,” she repeated. Then, after a momentary 
pause, “What will you do there?” 

“ Something; ah yes, I will certainly do something. Kever fear!” 

“ To the mountains. And what is to become of me?” 

“I don’t know.” 

He raised his eyes from the ground for a moment. There was a 
curious look in them. Tryphosa thought that she knew every glance 
and expression of his by heart, but there was something in his face 
now- which was new even to her. She began slowly to understand 
that her experiment had been a failure. 

“We shall talk of that when I come back. There will be a great 
deal to talk about.” 

“You don’t know — no, and you don’t care.” 

“ Perhaps not,” he said, shaking her off. 

Her arm remained poised, just where he had shaken it from him. 
Her face was white, but something was slowly kindling in her eyes. 
There was a spark lit beneath, and very gradually it broke to the 
surface : it reached it, and her black eyes flamed. 

“You villain!” she panted. “You abandon me — u3’ou villain!” 
and she struck out her closed hand towards him. 

The motion would have been a blow had it not come so slowly 
that Istvan could step back in time. The scorn in her eyes was so 
supreme that it had the power to arrest him for a moment. She 
was not beautiful, perhaps, but she was well-nigh sublime in this 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


253 


burst of outraged pride, which, coming so late, had yet come so su- 
perbly. She had the blood of ancient Rome in her veins, and it had 
at last caught fire. The passion of another woman would have spent 
its strength long before this climax was reached; but Tryphosa’s 
strength was all latent, dormant, difficult to be roused, but fearful 
when once awoke. 

For the first time in his life Istvan quailed before a woman. 

But not for long. Her hand was still out-stretched, her lips were 
still quivering with the energy of her last words, when already that 
one moment of stupefaction w^as past, and his thoughts plunged back 
into the current which was dragging them on. Her very presence, 
so real for a moment, became again distant and indistinct. 

“We shall talk when I come back — there will be much to tell;” 
and crushing his hat on to his head, he rushed out of the room, leav- 
ing Tryphosa standing wdiere she was. 

As long as his steps could be heard, she remained fixed and listen- 
ing, the light of scorn still in her eyes, the very anger seeming to 
have turned to stone in her face. Then, when the last step had died 
off, and all had been quiet for some moments, her hand slowly fell, 
and the rigid hardness of her face began to melt. She sank down 
on the seat beside her, and she wept. Those tears were for the man 
whom she had called “villain,” whom she would have struck but a 
minute ago, and whom yet she loved better than all the good men 
in the world. 

Little Codran, hearing the deep-drawn sobs, trotted to his mother’s 
side, pulled down her hands, and held the broken glass to her lips. 

“ Are you tired, mamma?” he said; “drink this little red drop — I 
left it for you; it is very sweet.” 

It was the glass from which Istvan Tolnay had drunk, and, taking 
it from Codran’s hand, Tryphosa dashed it to the ground. Then 
drawing the child on to her breast, she gave him a kiss so fierce that 
it seemed to scorch the freshness of his innocent cheek. 

“Can I go back to bed, mamma?” asked Codran, yawning. “I 
am so sleepy.” 

Yes, he might go back to bed: the scene was played out, the cur- 
tain dropped ; and the poor little piece of decoration, which had failed 
to decorate sufficiently, might be packed away again out of sight. 


CHAPTER XXXIH. 

THE FALLEN SIGN-POST. 

“Oh, der nrme Mensch steht immer mit zngebundenen Augen vor deinem 
Schvverte, uuhegreifliches Schicksal !”— Jkan Paul. 

This autumn season is bringing strange contrasts in its train. 
While below in the valley life and activitjr are slowly sinking to 
sleep, up on the mountains a blaze of departing splendor is bursting 
into glory. For weeks past Nature has been quietly at work laying 


254 


THE WxVTEUS OF HERCULES. 


in the gi’ound-tints, and painting in one touch of bright color after 
the other; but it is now only that the picture is completed, and stands 
forth for a brief time of perfection, for soon the winter will begin to 
undo the summer’s work. 

The Hercules valley is dazzling in winter, fairy-like in spring, . 
majestic in summer; but autumn remains its season of beauty: and 
this autumn is a singularly dry autumn, with no rains to rot the 
leaves, nothing but sunshine to wither them brilliantly. A wild- 
fire seems to have flown over the hill-side, and touched each maple- 
tree, till it flames like a burning brand ; the low masses of bilberry- 
bushes, clustering between the rocks, begin to Tvarm into color, 
glowing hot as embers. The rocks themselves, even as sober gray 
rocks, do not disdain to decorate themselves, and wear patches of 
gaudy mosses in honor of the departing summer. What had been 
bright before becomes brilliant now — what had been brilliant now 
reaches magnificence. Green turns into rich brown, and brown 
changes to molten gold. 

But it is in the world above that the splendor is thrown about 
most recklessly. Her magnificence has run riot. There is on all 
sides a waste of richness which almost over-surfeits the eye. Ev- 
ery colored lichen on the tree-stems, which in summer was delicate 
and small, has become magnified to double its size; every tuft of 
moss on the rotting carcass of a fallen trunk has deepened its pile 
and intensified its color. 

The dead trees are making preparations for their winter funeral ; 
the monarchs of the forests are lying in state, swathed in velvet, 
crowned with gold, and decked out with a brilliancy of ornament 
well worthy of a departed king. Bright fungi are the most gor- 
geous among these ornaments. These mysterious and capricious 
children of the forest have started up in thousands immediately af- 
ter the first autumn showers, and have continued to increase ever 
since, fed by the fatness of the soil, though no more rain has fallen. 
Piles of fungi, scarlet, blue, orange, and purple, have grown out of 
the bark of the trees, or stand in clusters covering the forest floor, 
each cluster like a handful of jewels which have been scattered 
broadcast. There are monster pearls on the branches overhead, 
and giant coral reared on all sides; glistening sprays, delicately cut 
and fiancifully ramified, decorate the pathway. 

It is difficult to believe that these gems are nothing but toad- 
stools; it is still more difficult to believe that these same toadstools 
form an important article of diet in a Roumanian peasant house- 
hold. The forests thus hold an inexhaustible fund of maigre dishes. 
Moreover, there seems to be a sort of mutual understanding between 
Nature and the Greek Church. They have accommodated each 
Other. Nature is kind enough to treasure up these stores for the 
time of fast; or perhaps the Greek Church has invented these fasts 
for the purpose of consuming the unlimited stores which the forests 
hold. 

“They string them upon cords and hang them up to dry,” said 
the Bohemian, somewhat contemptuously, as he pointed out a clump 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


255 


of fungi, in shape and color closely resembling a pile of ripe apri- 
cots; “or else they keep them in vinegar until they want them, and 
then devour them pickled. But they will not be quite as well off 
this year as they usually are: this is all nothing to the number I 
have sometimes seen in damp autumns — they become a positive 
nuisance then; you can scarcely step free of them.” 

Up here, in the depth of the forest, the store of maigre dishes ran 
no danger of being disturbed. Here the fungi would live their brief 
time of magnificence, and then drop back silently into the eternal 
decay of nature, without having been either strung upon cords or 
preserved in vinegar for the fast-time. 

“Don’t you eat toadstools in Bohemia?” inquired Kurt. 

“Of course we eat toadstools in Bohemia,” said the Bohemian, 
with a pitying smile ; “but we don’t eat the blue and the red ones 
— we only eat the yellow ones and the white ones.” 

Mr. Howard here begged to explain that he utterly condemned 
not only blue and red, but also yellow and white toadstools; and 
that no power on earth could succeed in making him touch any- 
thing but an orthodox mushroom, with no suspicion of a doubt 
upon its character, and cooked in an orthodox English fashion. 

Gretchen took no part in the discussion: she was wondering with- 
in her mind whether happiness were indeed compatible with a hut 
and smoked toadstools. 

They had been walking for some hours now, and, contrary to her 
wont, she was tired. The scene with Tryphosa had excited her; 
her sleep had been broken and feverish : not even the autumn brill- 
iancy around her could dispel the listless languor which weighed 
on her to-day. Ever since the moment of departure she had in- 
stinctively kept to her brother’s side, and had until now succeeded 
in avoiding anything but the most general and trivial conversation. 
She was so absorbed in her own anxieties that it was some time be- 
fore she noticed the remarkable change which had come over Tol- 
nay’s manner. He was excited and flushed — talked loud at mo- 
ments, and then subsided into moody silence. He seldom addressed 
her, and made no attempt to draw her away from the others. But 
whenever she happened to turn, she found his eyes fixed upon her; 
and once, when Dr. Komers was helping her over a tree-trunk, she 
had been startled by a glitter in Istvan’s eyes, and that same look of 
furious hatred which she had seen two days ago in the cave. Tol- 
nay was not looking at her at the moment — he was looking at the 
lawyer; and instinctively Gretchen dropped the hand which Vincenz 
had stretched towards her, and scrambled over the tree-trunk unaided. 

They rested at intervals, and walked on as they felt inclined. 
The whole day was spent in the forests thus, and it was sunset 
wdien they emerged from under the trees on to a free space of 
meadow. 

“We have been here before,” said Gretchen; ‘‘ this is the meadow 
on which we rested the very first time I walked in the mountains.” 

“When I was your guide,” said Tolnay beside her. “ I was to 
have shown you Ganra Dracului that day; don’t you remember?” 


256 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


It was the same meadow, but dressed in a different garment. 
Brilliantly green it had been before, but here, too, autumn had been 
busy, and with cunning alchemy had changed the emerald into an 
amethyst. Crocus-heads stood closed together, so thickly sown that 
every step crushed half a dozen of the full-blown flowers. 

“ Shall I tell you what I am thinking of?” asked Tolnay, abruptly, 
as they walked over the crocuses. 

“As you like,” said Gretchen, carelessly, not choosing to betray 
her trepidation. . 

“lam wishing that I had lived in the .age of romance.” 

His tone was so peculiar that Gretchen looked up in alarm. 

“Well,” he said, with a harsh laugh, “what are you afraid of? 
We are all so quiet and sensible, you know, in this age of reason.” 

“Fraulein,” said the Bohemian, hurrying to her side, “ there is no 
need for our crossing this meadow; it is time to be turning home- 
ward; look, the darkness is near.” 

Gretchen stopped and turned, glad of an inten-uption. She looked 
upward at the sky : the few clouds which floated there were tinged 
on their lower edge with the glow of rosy sunset. She looked down- 
ward and saw that already the shadows were growing deep under 
the trees. She was half inclined to turn. If the Bohemian had not 
spoken again she certainly would have turned; but a little too much 
anxiety is apt to spoil the very object we have at heart; and on this 
occasion the Bohemian betrayed in his manner a little too much 
anxiety. 

Had he only kept silent while Gretchen was hesitating all would 
have been well, but the Fates pushed him to speak. 

“Let us turn, Fraulein, and go homeward,” he urged, with grow- 
ing eagerness; “ there is nothing to be seen over there.” 

Gretchen looked from the sky to his face, glanced at it, and then 
looked again with a faintly awakened curiosity. The anxiety in 
those clear eyes was very apparent. It was evident that he did not 
wish them to cross this meadow. The consciousness of this fact 
was enough to double the desire which Gretchen felt for crossing it. 

“Is it of robbers you are afraid?” she said; “I think we might 
risk them. There will be moonlight on the hills to-night to light us 
on the way home.” 

“ I am not afraid of robbers, Fraulein.” 

“You cannot suppose that the weather will break; look at the 
sky — it seems as if it never could rain again.” 

“I am not afraid of the weather breaking, Fraulein.” 

“Is there a spring beyond this meadow?” 

There was a spring in that direction, the Bohemian reluctantly ad- 
mitted, but it was some distance off — a nearer one had run dry. 

“Let us go on then,” said Gretchen; “lam longing for the taste 
of fresh water.” 

He was silent after this, and led the way slowly over the crocus 
meadow, but there was a troubled look disturbing the usual peace- 
ful melancholy of his face, which Gretchen did not fail to notice. 

They entered the shadow of the forest, Gretchen taking care to 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


257 


keep by her brother’s side. Baron Tolnay was in advance, and Dr. 
Komers a little way behind them; Mr. Howard still farther to the 
rear. 

This was the same spot they had been on once before, on the oc- 
casion of their first walk in the mountains, but they had never 
passed here since. It was a part of the forest little known, and even 
less trodden by human feet than the rest of the woods around. It 
did not lie in the usual beat of either hunter or wood-cutter. 

The aspect of the spot had so changed with the change of the 
season that it woke no special memory in Gretchen’s mind until 
after a few more steps they came in sight of a huge beech - tree 
stretched upon the ground. 

She knew that tree ; it was the same on which the goatherds had 
sat, and on the leaves of which the goats had fed. 

There were no goatherds here now, and no tinkling goat -bell. 
There was silence and desolation all around the spot. The leaves 
had been fresh then, and the trunk newly hewn; now the green 
leaves had turned brown ; they strewed the ground, or hung rustling 
on the dead branches. Over the marks of the axe-strokes the mosses 
had begun to creep, hiding the unsightly wounds with their green 
and yellow velvet. Then the felled giant had been still half alive — 
the sap had scarce had time to stand still in its course; but now it 
was a mere corpse — a useless heap of wood on which decay is rap- 
idly seizing. It would be more gorgeous next autumn than it could 
be this autumn, for the moss and the lichens take many months to 
cover a dead tree — but it was well adorned even now. There was 
a colony of tiny fungi drawing a broad yellow streak down half its 
length, and single patches of color had begun to collect. 

The Bohemian came to a stand-still beside the tree-trunk, and put 
down the bundle which he carried over his shoulder, and which was 
tied with a piece of strong rope. 

“If you will sit down here, Friiulcin, I will fetch you the water; 
it will take me a little time.” 

“Very well,” said Gretchen; “we can wait here. Shall you be 
long away?” 

“Fifteen minutes, perhaps — not more.” 

“Thank you very much,” said Gretchen, sitting down on the trunk 
and handing him her flask. “lam sorry you have to go so far.” 

The Bohemian took the flask, and looked at Gretchen for a mo- 
ment as if he had something more to say. He turned away, how- 
ever, and walked a few steps off, then returned abruptly and said, 
“ You will wait here, Fraulein, will you not?” 

“Of course we shall wait here.” 

“ But, I mean, you will not move from the spot? You might lose 
your way.” , 

“ We are not going to move from the spot,” she answered, and the 
Bohemian again turned away and disappeared among the bushes to 
the left. 

The trunk made a pleasant seat, cushioned as it was by nature, 
and Gretchen felt glad of the rest. Dr. Komers and Kurt had also 

17 


258 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


sat down, for there was ample room for a dozen people more. Bar- 
on Tolnay remained standing. He held his hands behind him, and 
gazed fixedly at the trunk, with a look which told Gretchen that he 
had forgotten no detail of that day in early summer when they had 
first seen this fallen tree. 

Presently Mr. Howard came up, holding in his hand a brilliantly 
colored fungus. 

“ I have spent five minutes in knocking this thing off a tree,” he 
explained, as he sat down. “lam going to take it home with me 
in order to show my wife. Lady Blanche Howard, what the savages 
here feed upon. I have taken the most poisonous - looking one I 
could find.” 

“ I feel almost inclined to side with the savages at this moment,” 
said Gretchen, gazing rather longingly at the shining fungus wdiich 
Mr. Howard held, and which to all appearances seemed to have been 
showered over with a permanent coating of dew-drops. “It looks 
so cool and juicy that 1 would risk the poison for the sake of the re- 
freshment.” 

“Are you thirsty?” asked Mr. Howard. 

“I am parched. The Bohemian has gone to fill my flask, but he 
will not be back for a quarter of an hour. ” 

“Now this is too provoking” cried Mr. Howard, rising. “Why 
did you not appeal to me? Don’t you know that an Englishman 
is never without water. Water, water, water, as they din into my 
ears down there. I filled my flask fresh at the last spring.” 

Gretchen eagerly drank off the water which Mr. Howard poured 
into his patent cup : when the first edge was off her thirst, she 
began to feel sorry for the Bohemian, who had started on a useless 
mission. 

“Call him back,” said Mr. Howard ; “he can’t be far off,” and 
he gave a lusty shout which seemed to shake the branches overhead. 

“ He can walk at a tremendous pace when he chooses,” said Kurt. 

They listened for a moment, but there was no response. 

“I wish he were back,” said Gretchen, wearily. “I should like 
to be going home.” 

“Well, you do look rather weather-beaten,” said Kurt, contem- 
plating his sister. “It would be a bore to have to carry you down- 
hill. Where can that fellow be staying?” 

“I shall find him,” said Dr. Komers, rising to his feet. 

“You will lose your way,” Mr. Howard called after him; but the 
lawyer had already disappeared in the same direction which the 
Bohemian had taken some minutes before. 

The evening was closing in rapidly, and the brilliant tints of the 
forests beginning to fade into undefined grays. 

Now that she was sitting, Gretchen began to realize how tired she 
was. Her feverish thirst was quenched, but a sort of numb weari- 
ness was stealing over her. The day had been one long strain. She 
had succeeded thus far in averting an explanation with Tolnay, but 
the effort had told upon her. A sense of discouragement chilled 
her now. This very spot suggested discouragement. When she 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


259 


had last been here, her hopes of finding Gaura Dracului had been 
so high; but the discovery of Gaura Dracului had never seemed 
more hopeless than it did just now. After weeks of wandering 
about the hills, they were exactly at the same point at which they 
had been that day. How indignantly she had then refuted Tol- 
nay’s words, when he had laughingly declared that there was no 
such place as her father described! It almost seemed to her now as 
if Tolnay had been riglit. She could herself have believed Gaura 
Dracului to be a myth, were it not for that look of terror she had 
seen so often on the Bohemian’s face. She had at last reached the 
point of acknowledging to herself that the Bohemian’s simplicity 
had baffled her cunning. “Why not put a pistol to the fellow’s 
head?” Mr. Howard had suggested, earlier in the day, having work- 
ed himself into one of the fits of passion to which the Bohemian’s 
obstinacy periodically moved him; “he would speak fast enough 
then.” To which Gretchen replied that, as long as the Bohemian’s 
conscience was clear, he would not mind having a loaded cannon 
put to his head. 

There was silence between the four people thus left alone in the 
forest, until Istvan, pushing up his hat, which he had drawn over 
his forehead, sat down on the trunk beside Gretchen. 

He took the place by her side with a sort of ostentation— an oub 
spoken defiance, which seemed to challenge the world to dispute his 
right, if it dared. At this moment Gretchen did not attempt any 
resistance: she felt so tired, both physically and mentally, that even 
if he had now seized her hand and renewed his declaration of the 
other day, she would have been too weary to repulse him. 

But Istvan made no such demonstration. He began digging at 
the lichens on the trunk beside him with the point of his stick, 
making, at the same time, some apparently harmless, if somewhat 
abrupt, remarks. 

“What a much pleasanter day it was when we were here last!” 
he observed. 

“It was warmer,” said Gretchen, for want of any more original 
remark. 

“It was warmer, and the wood was green then, and the sum- 
mer was beginning instead of ending. Everything was pleasanter. 
Don’t you think so? We were a smaller party, too.” 

“That is not very complimentary to Mr. Howard.” 

“Nor to other members of the party either,” said Istvan, striking 
off another tuft of gray lichen with his stick. “Complimentary? 
Oh no, I am not in a mood for compliments.” 

•He said the last words rather lower, then checked himself, and 
bent down towards the bark of the tree-stem. He seemed to have 
forgotten his last train of thought, and to be gazing very intently 
at the lichens he had just been mutilating, Gretchen followed his 
look, but she could see nothing that might have been supposed to 
call forth that fixed gaze. For a minute or so he continued in deep 
silence to scrape away the moss, his whole attention absorbed in 
this apparently frivolous occupation. He stooped, raised his head. 


260 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Stooped again, lower this time, and then, looking up, said quickly, 
and with a sudden laugh, 

“Do you know what we are sitting on?” 

“A beech-tree,” said Gretchen, somewhat startled. 

“Not a beech-tree, but the beech-tree: look what I have found!” 

“ I did not know there was anything lost,” said Kurt. 

“There does not seem to be much to find,” said Mr. Howard, 
“except these eternal toadstools.” 

Istvan had now laid down his stick, and with his fingers was 
tearing away the moss. 

“Look!” was all he said, as he pointed to the spot. Gretchen 
looked, and on the place which Tolnay’s stick had laid bare she saw 
two deep-cut crosses engraved in the bark of the fallen tree. 

It was long since she had given a thought to the beech-tree which 
Adalbert had marked as sign -post to Oaura Dracului: the recol- 
lection flashed back upon her now. In her excitement she sprang 
from her seat. 

“If there is a third cross, it is papa’s mark,” she cried. “Baron 
Tolnay, let me look!” 

Istvan’s hand was there before hers, and while she was speaking 
the third cross was disclosed. 

The marks were worn with time and weather, but they were un- 
mistakable. This beech-tree bore three crosses on it, cut into the 
bark at what must have been the height of a man’s stature, in the 
time when the stem had stood upright. 

Just as the solution of a riddle, which we have tried in vain to 
guess, often provokes us by its very simplicity, so did it now appear 
absurd to Gretchen, and well-nigh incredible, that they should have 
been so near to the crosses and yet not have seen them. Why, in 
the midst of all their speculations, had they never contemplated the 
possibility of the tree which bore the marks being felled? 

A minute was spent in examination and conjecture, and then fol- 
lowed the desire for immediate action. Gretchen had gone down 
on her knees to examine the marks more closely, but it was not 
long before she rose and looked about her, striving to recall her 
father’s exact directions. 

“ When you have found that tree, you are not a hundred yards 
from the spot,” Adalbert had said. In spite of herself, Gretchen 
began to tremble with the agitation of this thought. 

Carefully turning in the direction which her father had indicated, 
and calculating her paces with all possible nicety, Gretchen began 
her search in advance of the others. 

The incertitude did not last more than five minutes. * 

By an ingenious combination of excessively simple circumstances, 
Gaura Dracului lay so marvellously concealed that not one person 
in fifty passing close to the spot would ever guess at its existence, 
and that fiftieth person whose ignorance was enlightened, would 
probably reap his experience by breaking his neck in a most ghast- 
ly fashion. A dip in the ground exactly like a hundred other dips, 
and a tangle of bushes, scarcely more dense than in any other part 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


261 


of the forest, combined together to screen this black danger which 
lurked here in the very depth of the shadows, 

Gretchen herself overshot the mark, for her eagerness upset her 
calculations. She was beginning again to doubt, when she heard 
Tolnay calling to her from a little way back, 

“This way, this way!” 

And Mr. Howard shouted, “Yes, this way: but, in Heaven’s name, 
be careful!” 

She turned back the way she had come, stumbled over a stone, and 
recovered herself ; broke through a narrow opening in the trees, 
where the low-hanging branches struck her in the face, stooped 
down to escape them, and, with another step, stood still. 

The rich undergrowth of moss and fern at her feet opened sud- 
denly. She was standing on the brink of a space, irregularly circu- 
lar — black, vacant, and immeasurably deep. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

GAURA DRACULUI. 

“ Is this n dagger which I see before me, 

The haudle toward my baud V'— Macbeth. 

Gretchen ’s first impulse was to exclaim in wonder, her second 
to recoil in fear. There was a mixture of beauty and horror about 
the spot which put to naught every description she had heard of 
the place. All around the moss and ferns wreathed in wasteful 
abundance. Up to the very edge of the horrible abyss did the ivy 
creep boldly; and not up to the edge only, but over it the green 
trails had ventured. There were clinging plants of all descriptions, 
contending with each other as to which of them should reach down 
the deepest to sound that gaping space below. They hung in a 
heavy fringe down into the darkness, scarcely stirred by the breeze, 
nor even touched by the sunshine; and the lowest hanging leaves 
of these venturesome trails were pale for want of full light, as are 
plants which have been grown in a cellar. Trails have hung down 
, this way year by year, have budded in spring, and have dropped 
their leaves down into the gulf below them when autumn came 
round. Myriads of withered leaves mustliave fluttered down there, 
away from the light; but none have ever come back to tell the tale 
of what they had seen below. 

The very beauty all around made the horror of the spot more pal- 
pable. The stately ferns waved here as peacefully as though they 
grew in some quiet dell; the ivy twined as soberly as though it 
clothed an old church tower; and the innocent flowerets peep over 
the edge. But there is treason in them, one and all. They are the 
beautiful mask of a hideous thing; they are the smiling ornaments 
which have decked out this hidden trap. There is not one leaflet 
which trembles there, not one floweret which blooms, that does not 


202 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


deserve to be rooted out and left to wither. Stripped of its wreath 
of verdure, Oaura Dracului would also be stripped of half its peril. 
If that black hole were cut in the naked rock, and bared on all sides 
to view, it would be a frightful object, but it would no longer be 
the lurking danger which it now is. Nothing but a fiendish cun- 
ning, you might fancy, could have contrived to turn so much beau- 
ty to so cruel an account. 

“A horrid yawning black hole,” as Adalbert had said; and his 
words were strictly true. And yet not one of the four people now 
standing on the edge of the hole but did not feel conscious that each 
had carried within them a different picture to this. The picture in 
each mind would have as widely differed from the other in the 
painting of details, as each picture was different from the reality be- 
fore them. It was not that it was less horrible, or less black, or less 
beautiful than they had imagined,but that it washorrible and beautiful 
in some inexplicably different way from that which they had expected. 

Gretchen had known that the spot would be awful ; but she had 
not thought that the awfulness would make itself felt in this sen- 
sible, almost tangible manner. Against her own will she stepped 
back shuddering. The sense of immeasurable depth, the black va- 
cancy, with the suggestion of a deeper, blacker vacancy below, made 
her giddy. It was not difficult to understand why the peasants 
called the spot haunted, and invented legends as apologies for their 
fear. Standing beside it now in the gloom of twilight, Gretchen 
felt a shiver run over her. For centuries this hole had stood open; 
it was a necessity almost that one, or more than one, victim had fall- 
en into its jaws. Each of the four persons who stood now in awed 
silence by the edge instinctively conjured up visions of frightful 
tragedies. A traveller lost in the dark — how, when coming down 
the slope of that bank, could he avoid walking straight into the 
arms of death? One step would be enough now to send any of 
them headlong to destruction. 

Kurt was the one who appeared the least impressed. He picked 
up a stone and fiung it down. It flashed out of sight, bounded 
from rock to rock, fainter and alwa3’^s fainter; then came an inter- 
val of silence — it must have reached the bottom; no, a far, far-off 
sound told them that it was still falling. Not till now had they 
realized the awful depth. They threw another stone, and counted 
the time of its fall upon the second-hand of Mr. Howard’s watch. 
There was the same flash, the same bounds, the same horribly sug- 
gestive interval of silence, and then the distant rattling sound again. 
During half a minute an attentive ear could still catch the faint 
sound of a fall; and even then, when it died away, they were left 
with the impression that it had not stopped falling, but was only 
too far off to be heard any longer. 

“ They say that it leads straight to hell, don’t they?” said Istvan, 
suddenly. He had not spoken since Gretchen’s appearance on the 
spot; he was now standing close to the edge, gazing down the hole 
with a fixed and abstracted stare. “Strange that I should never 
have come across it before nowl” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


263 


“And we were so near it tliat first day,” said Gretchen, drawing 
back another step from the edge. “I do not see how we can have 
missed it. ” 

“That is because we took the turn to the left — the way the Bo- 
hemian has gone for water.” 

“And where does that lead?” asked Mr. Howard. 

“To the frontier: we are not half an hour from Roumania here.” 

The bushes rustled close to them, and the Bohemian appeared 
upon the scene, pale, dishevelled, and well-nigh breathless. In his 
left hand he held Gretchen’s water -flask; with his right he beat 
his breast violently, while he stood struggling to recover his 
breath. 

The mild face of this peacefully inclined man had never so near- 
ly approached to passion {is it did at this moment. 

‘ ‘ Heilige Maria!” he gasped out — “ Ileilige M^ittergottes of the Wun- 
derbaum at Choteborschwitz ! My vow! my sacred vow! I have 
not broken it. Der liehe Herrgott knows I am innocent!” 

“ Of course you are innocent,” said Gretchen, laying her hand on 
the arm of the excited man. “We have found Gaura Dracului; 
but your vow is safe.” 

“No reason that I can see for such excitement,” observed Kurt, 
composedly. 

“I am thankful that we have not allowed that fellow’s supersti- 
tious folly to batfle us,” remarked Mr. Howard, with satisfaction. 

“ How did you find it ?” asked the Bohemian, wiping his fore- 
head with an unsteady hand, while, still exhausted, he leaned 
against a tree. 

Gretchen explained to him the secret of the three crosses. 

“Those three crosses! I have seen them often, Fraulein, when 
the tree was still upright. They have puzzled me too.” 

He drew a long breath; and then, partially recovering his com- 
posure, offered her the water-flask. 

“You have waited long, Fraulein; your thirst must be terrible.” 

“ The water!” said Gretchen, looking blankly at the flask. 

“ The water you sent me to fetch,” the Bohemian repeated, hold- 
ing the flask towards her. 

“ But Dr. Komers?” she said; “ did you not meet him? He went 
after you to tell you we had already found water. Mr. Howard’s 
flask was full.” 

‘ ‘ I did not meet the Herr Doctor. I came back to the tree-trunk, 
and when I saw the bundle still lying there, and you gone, I guessed 
you would be here — I was afraid of it.” 

“Komers will be waiting for us at the tree,” decided Kurt — 
“depend upon it.” 

“Unless he has lost his way meantime,” said Tolnay, with a grim 
laugh. 

“ Which would be a nasty job about here,” added Mr. Howard. 

^ “Oh, I hope he will be careful!” cried Gretchen, drawing back 
another step from the abyss. 

She saw a gleam of jealousy in Tolnay’s eyes. 


26 i 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“That man is always careful,” sneered Istvan, just under his 
breath; “ but even careful men can sometimes lose their way.” 

The Bohemian had by this time recovered himself to some ex- 
tent, though he still leaned against the tree-stem. 

“Those three erosses!” he repeated, with a dissatisfied shake of 
the head. “ If I had but known it! It always struck me that they 
were too well cut to be done by a goatherd. If I had but known 
what they meant!” 

“And if you had known what they meant?” 

“I should have destroyed them.” 

“Come!” cried Mr. Howard, “this is growing preposterous. 
This fellow’s obstinaey beats anything in my experience. What 
was all that rubbish he told us about the place? What is it that the 
Greek fellow down there swore on his clifb?” 

“A vietim every century,” said the Bohemian, and the old scared 
expression came back to his face. 

“Why, the man looks as if he had been down the hole himself, 
or chucked some one else over,” said Mr. Howard, eying him se- 
verely. “It can’t be superstition alone that sets him shaking in his 
shoes this way. ” 

“Superstition! Ileilige Jungfrau of the Wunderhaum at Chote- 
borschwitz! we are not superstitious, we Bohemians, like the people 
of this strange country, ” sighed the man, with the resignation of an 
exile; “and neither have I ever seen any man or woman go down 
into that blackness. But — but — ” > 

“But you have heard of such a thing happening?” finished 
Gretchen, bending an imperious glance upon him. “Tell us the 
story!” 

“ It is the story of my vow',” he faltered. 

“The story of your vow can do no more harm than is already 
done.” 

It was growing too dark to see clearly the expression of the Bo- 
hemian’s face; but from the pause which followed, and from the 
nervous motion of his hands as he twisted up the cap between them, 
it was evident that he was going through a sharp tussle with his 
conscience. Finally, the desire to justify himself against the charge 
of superstition triumphed, and he spoke. 

“ Friiulein, ” he began in a tremulous voice, still leaning against 
Ihe tree-stem beside him, “you will remember how I told you that 
both I and my father were born in this strange country, and that it 
was my grandfather who accepted the offer which the Government 
had made him, and left his nation to settle here. It was a rich farm 
which they gave him. He brought his young wife with him, and 
his only child was born here soon after he had settled down ; and 
yet he should have rued the day when he came to this land. He 
had not been settled a year in the valley wdien a Wallachian who 
worked on his farm told him the story of Gaura Dracului, and of 
the treasure which the brigands had buried there, and which no one* 
had found. 

“My grandfather loved gold. The story inflamed his thirst for 


THE 'U'ATERS OP HERCULES. 


2G5 


riches. For weeks he dreamed of nothing else; and at last he deter- 
niined, in concert with the Wallachian laborer, to whom he prom- 
ised half the gain, to sound the depth of the Devil’s Hole. 

“The two went up in secret — not even my grandmother knew the 
object of the expedition; and it was only next da}”-, when the Wal- 
lachian came back alonft, half mad with terror, and told her how the 
rope had broken in his hands, and his companion plunged into the 
abyss before his eyes — it was only then that she heard of Gaura 
DrcLCului” 

The Bohemian broke off, and crossed himself. No one spoke for 
a moment. Very swift, very silent, very terrible must such a death 
have been. 

“When I was ten years old,” said the Bohemian, “my father 
took me up here to this place and showed it to me. He made me 
swear by my devotion to the Wunderbaum at Choteborschwitz that 
I would never reveal the spot to anybody. It was his mother, my 
grandmother — I remember her still — who had toljj him the story.” 

“But,” said Gretchen, after a moment of silence, “I cannot see 
what logical object your father had with that vow. The more the 
place is known the less danger there would be of a person stum- 
bling in.” 

“That may be, Fritulein, but I was bound to hold my vow. My 
father meant it for the best, no doubt, I have seldom come to the 
spot myself, and I never cut shingles in this part of the forest. I 
saw something happen here long ago, when I was a child, which 
made me sad for many days. There were two young kids which 
had strayed near this place, and on that bank above they began to 
butt at each other in play. It was the prettiest sight you could see, 
and I laughed as I looked on ; but I stopped laughing very soon. 
One of them made a false step; he had got his horns entangled with 
his playfellow’s horns, and the two fell together down that hole. 
They went straight down; there was not a sound; it was all quiet 
in a moment.” 

“And.. I suppose that the devils had roast kid for dinner that 
day,” observed Kurt, flippantly. 

“We once carried a big stone here,” went on the Bohemian, un- 
perturbed— I and some peasants who knew of the spot. It took six 
of us to carry it ; and when we threw it down, the breath of air 
which came up knocked the caps off our six heads as if with a 
blow.” 

“I should have been mightily surprised if it had not,” remarked 
Air. Howard; “and you took "it for supernatural interference, of 
course.” 

“And another tfme,” went on the Bohemian, calmly, “we let a 
man down with ropes. AVe had fifty yards of rope, but it was not 
enough. Next day we came back with double as much rope; but 
when we had lost sight of the man, we heard him calling up, for he had 
taken fright: and after that we did not meddle with the place again.” 

“Bah!” said Mr, Howard, “in ten years the measurement of the 
depth will be reduced to a mathematical calculation.” 


26G 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“That is what papa says,” observed Gretchen; “and he believes, 
too, that there is some outlet below. ” 

“That is the secret of the mountains, Friiulein; and the mount- 
ains do not chatter. According to the story of the brigands’ treas- 
ure some such passage would need to exist. I know of one story 
only which seems to confirm it. My father was told by an old 
peasant, who died at ninety years of age, that a brother of his had 
a dog whom he wanted to be rid of, and so he just took him up to tlie 
wood and knocked him into the hole. He was sure never' to see 
him again; but ten days after that, as he was leaving his house in 
the morning, there on the door-step the dog was sitting, nothing but 
skin and bone, and scratches all over. Nobody knows where he 
came from. The peasants said he was not good enough for the 
devils, and that therefore they let him go again.” 

“Too thin for roasting,” suggested Kurt. “They might have 
made broth of him, though.” 

But even Kurt’^ irreverence failed to disturb the gravity of the 
others. No story of Gaura DraciUui sounded too extravagant as 
long as Gaura Dracului lay before the listeners’ eyes. In Gretchen’s 
head there was ringing the air of the Bohemian’s melancholy song, 
and the monotonous refrain — 

“Beware, beware ! 

Of Gaura Dracului beware!” 

It seemed to her that that Roman woman, sacrificed to blind jeal- 
ousy, should henceforward, from a legendary myth, become to her an 
authentic personage. Had she not stood beside the hapless victim’s 
grave? 

It was a place to pursue a man in his dreams, to haunt him even 
by broad daylight. The shiver of interest which it awoke was both 
exquisite and painful. While longing to be away, one yet was 
loath to leave it. - Some such feeling it was which kept them all 
silent now as they stood around it. The fascination seemed to be 
strongest upon Istvan. He slowly paced round the edge,, with his 
eye fixed on the blackness below, stepping sometimes so perilously 
near to the deceitful brink as to deal nervous starts to his compan- 
ions, and to call forth many an invocation to tlie Ileilige Jungfrau 
of the Wunderbaum at Choteborschwitz from the scared Bohe- 
mian. 

“Tell me,” said Gretchen to the guide, “have you ever heard of 
any other accident happening here, except the death of your grand- 
father?” 

“Never any other, Fraulein: there may have been accidents here, 
or there may not. Those who go down there do not come back to 
tell us stories. You know what the peasants here say. I told you 
of their superstition.” 

“A victim every century,” said Tolnay, half aloud. 

“And when was it that your grandfather was killed?” asked 
Mr. Howard. 

“ In the last year of last century, mein Uerrf 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 267 

“Ha!” cried Tolnay, raising his head. “Then the devils have 
not had their due this time?” 

“No, Herr Baron,” said the Bohemian, with a feeble attempt at a 
sneer— “not if we give credit to the stories of this ignorant people.” 
But the contempt in his voice was ‘not convincing; his simple soul 
could not quite escape the gloomy magic of the spot. 

“ Perhaps, though, their sable majesties will be content with the 
kids,” remarked Kurt: “that immolation took place this century, 
you know.” 

“ But it is a human victim they want,” explained the Bohemian, 
with a rather inconsistent eagerness; “it is human blood which 
they must taste once in every hundred years : the god of the valley 
has sworn it on his club. ” 

“ And Hercules keeps his oaths,” muttered Istvan. 

His tone was so strange that Gretchen hurriedly turned to leave 
the spot. 

“We can do no more for to-day,” she said; “experiments need 
not only daylight, but also ropes and tools. Now that the spot is 
found, all will be easy.” 

“I am not so sure of that,” said Mr. Howard: “even now, en- 
lightened as we are, we might stumble round and round the place 
for half an hour, or into it perhaps, before we knew where Ave were. 
That one tree is not guide enough; if you will keep your patience 
for half a dozen minutes longer, I shall press a few more of these 
giants into the sign-post service;” and he began unclasping his big 
English penknife, and prepared to attack the nearest beech-tree. 

But Gretchen had been seized with a sudden violent desire to be 
away from the spot. Just as a minute ago she had felt drawn to 
linger, so was she now consumed by a fever to be gone. 

“Leave it alone,” she answered, impatiently; “we have already 
lost more time than we can afford, and besides, it is getting too dark 
to see what you are cutting in the bark. Mr. Howard, please come 
aw^ay.” 

“As you command,” said Mr. Howard, slicing away doggedly at 
the beech-tree. “I shall leave the others alone; but just let me mark 
this one fellow. I am a practical Englishman, and it revolts my 
common-sense to leave the spot without having done something to- 
wards facilitating our next search.” 

“You are an obstinate and unpersuadable Englishman. But we 
are not going to stand by and watch you dig your crosses. There ! 
if you will have the tree marked, do it this way;” and Gretchen 
l)ulled her handkerchief from her pocket, and twisted it round the 
lowest branch, knotting it fast with a double knot. “There! that 
is better than your pedantic cutting; it can be seen almost in the 
dark. Now, come away quick; let us lose no more time.” 

“I submit,” said Mr. Howard, reluctantly closing his knife. 
“But let us sum up the matter first: From the white mark, tiirn to 
the right — mind you, to the right; the hole lies sharp to the left.” 

“Yes, yes,” said Gretchen, “that will do; let us go now.” 

They made their way back without much difficulty. It was not 


268 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


SO dark now, for the moon w^as rising early, and poured through 
every loophole which the branches above aJfforded. They had never 
before been on the hills at so late an hour. But even with the pos- 
sibility of robbers and bears before her eyes, Gretchen felt no appre- 
hension: she knew that both Tolnay and Mr. Howard carried revol- 
vers in case of emergencies ; and besides, was there not the gun of 
the Bohemian’s unfortunate grandfather, which, after all, might go 
off at the right moment? 

The prostrate beech-tree was bathed in moonlight; a®d, sitting 
on the trunk, they saw the figure of Dr. Komers. He did not per- 
ceive them until they were close; then he rose hurriedly, and came 
to meet them. 

“ At last ! I could not imagine where you were.” 

“We could not imagine where you were,” said Kurt. 

“ I missed the Bohemian, but managed to find my way back here; 
and seeing all the things about — plaids and so on — I concluded that 
my best course was to wait patiently.” 

“ Ah, you don’t know what ^ou have missed!” said Gretchen. 

And then, with much question and answer, and more or less ex- 
cited narrative, the lawyer’s ignorance was enlightened. The Bohe- 
mian knelt on the ground, strapping up the basket which had car- 
ried their provisions. 

“It is a positive pity that you have not seen it,” admitted Mr. 
Howard. “ lam bound to confess that we have nothing which 
beats it in its own line of horrors within the seas of Great Britain.” 

“ Is it far from here?” asked Vincenz. 

“Not three minutes’ walk.” 

There is no particular necessity for seeing it to-night, is there?” 
asked Kurt; “ it is not going to close up just yet, I fancy.” 

Vincenz looked doubtful. As a matter of personal taste, he did 
not care much whether he did or did not see a black hole which was 
supposed to have no bottom. He took no special interest in either 
geological or historical researches. This black hole, however, this 
Gaura Dracului, which had played so great a part this summer, was 
not quite like any other black hole. He had assisted in the search 
for weeks past; it was an object of interest to Adalbert Mohr; above 
all, it was an interest to Gretchen. The position was a tantalizing 
one. To be the only one of the party who should come back with- 
out having seen the spot — to be so near, and to go away ignorant — 
it was enough to excite even a hitherto slumbering curiosity. 

“Three minutes there,” said Mr. Howard, with his watch in his 
hand, “three minutes back, and one minute to stand and shiver at 
the edge — seven minutes in all. We are so late already that seven 
minutes are neither here nor there. It will take us about that to 
pack up our things.” 

“You had better make up your mind quick, one way or the 
other,*” remarked Kurt; “but if I were you, I should take it on 
trust.” 

“ So should I,” said Gretchen, as she flung her shawl around her. 
“ It is so dark too, it would scarcely be safe. "Dr. Komers, do not go?'* 


TUB WATERS OF HERCULES. 


2G9 


She had spoken low, but both Vincenz and Tolnay had heard her 
distinctly, and they both turned their heads towards her. For one 
instant Vincenz felt his heart leap up with a sort of wild hope, 
but it sank down again in the next. 

“I am an old fool,” thought Vincenz; “ it is only that she is in a 
hurry to get home.” 

“Don’t go,” said another voice beside him: it was Tolnay ’s, and 
there was again in it that mocking tone with which he loved to tor- 
ment the lawyer. But the mockery to-night was not as light and 
laughing as was Tolnay’s wont. 

“And why should I not go?” 

“Because you would see nothing; and besides — it would ifot be 
safe.” 

“I shall go,” said Vincenz; “will any one show me the way?” 

“The Bohemian will,” said Mr. Howard, as he carefully stowed 
away his yellow fungus in the empty provision-basket. 

The Bohemian looked up from the bundle he was busy with on 
the ground. He looked piteously towards Gretchen. 

“I can’t do that, Frauleiu; it would be directly against my vow. 
I was never to reveal the spot to any living person.” 

“Oh, bother it!” said Mr. Howard, witli magnanimity; “then I 
shall have to take you, I suppose.” 

“Yes, ’’said Gretchen, eagerly. 

“No,” said Tolnay, stepping forward ; “ I will show you the way.” 

There was nothing strange in the offer, and yet every person of 
Hie party looked up surprised. Tolnay’s mood ftll day had been so 
peculiar — so gloomy at moments and so wildly gay at others — he 
had showed so distinct a dislike towards Dr. Komers, that even a 
slight politeness of this sort struck every one with momentary sur- 
prise. 

Tolnay saw the start, saw it most clearly upon Gretchen’s face, 
and asked somewhat defiantly, 

“ Well, have I said anything peculiar?” 

“ Nothing at all,” said Mr. Howard. 

“Nothing,” echoed Gretchen, more faintly. 

“Nothing, except that everything about him is peculiar to-day,” 
remarked Kurt to himself. 

In the next minute already no one could imagine what had caused 
that glance of surprise. Why should not Baron Tolnay have taken 
it into his head to be polite for once, even to Dr. Komers? 

“I am much obliged to you,” said Vincenz, readily. “We had 
better lose no time.” 

“Much better,” answered Tolnay; and he stood for a minute 
looking at Gretchen, as if he had forgotten the business in hand. 
Then he turned quickly and walked away, Vincenz following close 
behind him. 

Their steps echoed on the dry crisp moss and the crackling brown 
of the leaves. Gretehen watched them— Tolnay in advance, Vincenz 
still close behind him; they would disappear among the bushes in 
another moment. 


270 


THE WATEES OF HEECULES. 


She got up, aud, moved by some unaccountable impulse, called 
after them, “Don’t forget the signal, the handkerchief on the tree; 
the tree is to the right, the hole to the left.” 

She was not sure she had been heard, for Vincenz kept straight 
on, but Tolnay turned for a moment. 

“I remember,” he called back. 

How white his face looked in the moonlight — ghastly pale it 
seemed at this distanee. And his eyes! Was it the moonlight alone 
which made them shine with that fevered brightness? 

Something like dread, something like suspicion, for an instant 
crossed Gretchen’s mind. She turned to Kurt, who was lighting a 
fresh cigar for the homeward journey. 

“Kurt, will you not go witli them? they are not out of sight yet.” 

Kurt laughed good-naturedly. 

“My dear Gretchen, you are really very amusing. In what ca- 
pacity am I to offer myself? Is not one man enough to show a hole 
in the ground to another man?” 

“ I suppose so,” sighed Gretchen; and she sat down to wait, half 
ashamed of the anxiety she had betrayed. 

The two figures had vanished among the bushes; for a few sec- 
onds longer they could hear the crackling of the trodden leaves, and 
then they heard nothing more. 

“We must be close to it,” said Vincenz to Baron Tolnay, when 
they had plunged into the thicket of bushes. “ Did they not call 
out something about a signal after us?” 

Istvan nodded without turning his head ; but in the next second 
he came to a dead stand-still, and faced straight round. He w’as 
muttering something under his breath. Vincenz did not hear what 
the words were; and if he had heard them, he would not have known 
what to make of them. What Istvan said to himself were only the 
few words — “ I cannot do it.’” 

“lam not going farther,” he said, louder; but his voice was so 
husky that Vincenz could scarcely catch even this. 

They were standing in a patch of clear moonlight ; and Vincenz, 
peering through his spectacles, thought he had never seen a man’s 
face look as pale as Istvan’s face looked at this moment. 

“Are you ill?” he asked, with sudden alarm, forgetting every 
thought of rivalry and petty differences in an honest fellovz-feeling 
of sympathy. He put out his hand towards Tolnay’s; but Istvan 
started aside violently, as if he could not bear that touch. 

“Yes — no; I don’t know— perhaps I am ill, or perhaps I am mad. 
I am not going farther. You can find it for yourself; we are not 
twenty paces off. ” 

“Do not trouble yourself,” said Vincenz, with his usual courtesy. 
“I shall certainly find it for myself, if you will only tell me about 
that signal.” 

“ It is a white handkerchief on the branch,” replied Tolnay, slow- 
ly; and he broke off then, and fastened upon the lawyer’s face a look 
so intense, so strained and fixed, that Vincenz stood wondering for a 
moment as to what that glance coidd mean. 


TIIE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


271 


There had been more than one moment to-day when Vinoeuz had 
met this man’s eyes, and had puzzled over their expression. The 
hatred he had fancied to see in them might be explained ; but there 
had been another clement in those glances, for wliich he had not 
known how to account: that other element had looked like jealousy. 
What ground, in Heaven’s name — what ground for jealousy could 
the 5^oung, the rich, the fascinating Baron Tolnay have with regard 
to an obscure lawyer, without fortune, short-sighted, and on the 
verge of forty? 

Vincenz had asked himself that question earlier in the day; he 
did not think of it at this moment. All he saw was, that Toluay 
was looking strangely ill and disturbed. 

“ A white handkerchief on a branch,” said Vinccnz, recalling the 
other to the point in question. All Istvan’s energies seemed to have 
become absorbed in the intensity of that gaze. 

“ A white handkerchief on the branch — yes,” said Tolnay. 

“ And when I come to it, I must turn which w.ay ?” 

Tolnay looked for one moment into the face of the man before 
him, and he saw that he was unsuspicious and open, ready to take 
him at his word. He set his teeth. 

“ When you come to it, you must turn he paused — tliat pause 

was scarcely a second — “ you must turn sharp to the left.” 

“ To the left; thank you,” said Vincenz, courteously. 

Tolnay made no response. He stood watching the other till he 
passed out of sight — his own figure standing so motionless that he 
seemed scaTcely to be drawing breath. It was not pity which he 
felt even at this moment— it was a furious jealousy. 

When he had stood for the space of a few seconds, he turned his 
face in the opposite direction and broke his way through the bushes 
— running as if he were being pursued, as if at any price he must 
get away from this spot. 

Vincenz walked straight on, peeiing about for the signal. He 
had not got more than twenty paces when he saw it on the tree. 
This signal shone so white that not even a short-sighted man could 
overlook it. It hung on the branch like a huge white flower, doub- 
ly pale in the moonlight. A slanting moonbeam, piercing through the 
branches, had touched it and made it shine out conspicuously. But 
though the signal on the branch was so distinct, the ground at the 
lawyer’s feet ^\as dark, and he did not see where he was stepping. 

He stood for a moment, looking at the signal; then, exactly fol- 
lowing Tolnay’s direction, unhesitatingly, unsuspiciously, blindly, he 
turned, as he had been told— sharp to the left. 


272 


THE WATEKS OF IIEECULES. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

A RIDDLE. 

“But long they looked, and feared, and wept.”— Buyant. 

The last of the plaids was strapped up, the provision-basket had 
been got into travelling order; there was nothing now to do but to 
sit and wait till those two men came back again through the bushes. 
Mr. Howard and Kurt exchanged occasional remarks; the Bohemi- 
an smoked his pipe, standing a little apart; Gretchen sat silent, feel- 
ing tired, and conscious of listening rather impatiently for the sound 
of the returning footsteps. 

“Three minutes there,” said Mr. Howard, drawing out his "watch, 
“three minutes back, and say three minutes for shuddering — nine 
minutes in all. They have been gone ten minutes now.” 

‘ ‘ Suppose we go on slowly, and let them follow, ” said Kurt. 

“ No,” said Gretchen; “we must wait till they come.” 

“ Oh, all right ; but you looked as if you had had enough of this 
waiting business. I know I have.” • 

“Four minutes for shuddering — five minutes,” proclaimed Mr. 
Howard, holding his watch so that the moonlight fell upon it. “It 
is beginning to grow into an unreasonable allowance. It is wrong 
in them to indulge in so many shivers when they know that we are 
waiting. ” 

There was a short silence, during which Mr. Howard kept his 
^es on his watch, and the Bohemian puffed his pipe steadily. 
Then the puffs stopped, and the Bohemian stood in an attitude of 
attention. 

“ They are coming now,” he said. 

Mr. Howard returned his watch to his pocket, and the Bohemian 
hastily lighted the little lantern which was to guide them down, foi 
in the dense parts of the forest there would be no moonlight on theii 
path. 

They all looked towards the bushes to the right. But those bush- 
es never rustled — they slept on peacefully in the moonlight; it was 
from the opposite side that footsteps were approaching. 

“Why, they have not been to the hole, after all,” said Mr. How- 
ard, in a tone of disgust; “they are coming from the other side.” 

“Fine result of all our signal-hoisting,” laughed Kurt. “They 
will be ashamed to say it; but I bet you, nine to one, they haven’t 
found the place.” 

“Just what I said,” Mr. Howard wrathfully exclaimed; “we 
should have marked half a dozen trees at least, to make sure.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 273 

Meanwhile from between the trees the figure of a man was begin- 
ning to grow distinct, pacing slowly towards them. 

“ They are takhig it easy,” said Kurf, with disapproval, 

‘ ‘ They f’ repeated Mr. Howard ; “I only see one. Which of them 
is it? or is it neither?” 

Just as he spoke the approaching man had to cross a strip of 
moonlight. It was Istvan Tolnay’s face on which the moon shone. 

“Halloo! what’s this?” cried out Mr. Howard. 

“Did you not find the place?” shouted Kurt. 

They shouted loud enough, but Istvan neither hurried his pace 
nor made any answer to their calls. He came on somewhat lagging- 
ly, never raising his eyes from the ground before him. When he 
had reached them, he looked up at last, and started as if he had not 
expected to see them there. 

“Where is Dr. Komers?” he asked. 

“ That is just the question we were going to put to you,” laughed 
Mr. Howard. 

“ He has not come back, then?” 

“No; certainly not.” 

“I thought not,” said Tolnay; and he sat down on the trunk as 
if exhausted, passing his handkerchief over his damp forehead. 

“But where is Dr. Komers?” repeated Gretchen. 

He answered without looking at her: “ I did not go with him all 
the way ; he said he would find the place alone. I did not care to 
go on — I felt giddy.” 

Every one was a little surprised : but the tone in which he spoke, 
and the pallor of his face, bore out his words. There was some- 
thing subdued and exhausted about his manner. Even his eyes 
seemed to have no light in them, Mr. Howard could not entirely 
suppress a contemptuous snort. It was in his eyes a degrading 
spectacle to see this wretched young foreigner so entirely knocked 
up by a day’s walk in the mountains. 

“You told him about the signal?” asked Gretchen. 

Still not looking at her, he answered, “ I told him about the signal.” 

“And you are sure he understood you?” 

“I am sure he understood me.” 

“Then he will be back directly,” said Mr. Howard, drawing out 
his watch with an impatient jerk. 

“I hope so,” said Gretchen, in a whisper. 

Tolnay turned his head and looked at her as she said it, then his 
glance returned to the ground. 

“Ten minutes for shivering he has given himself, ”‘said Mr, How- 
ard, still watch in hand. “This is getting past a joke; it is a posi- 
tive want of tact. ” 

“ Or of sense of locality,” said Kurt. “Most likely he cannot find 
his way back,” 

“Of course that is obvious,” said-'Orctchen, somewhat irritably. 
“What is the use of making such self-evident remarks?” 

“Shall I go and look for the Herr Doctor?’* volu^iteered the Bo- 
hemian, taking his pipe from his mouth. 

18 


274 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“ Look here! we have had enough of this sort of thing,” objected 
Mr. Howard. “ There have been enough cross-purposes this even- 
ing without making more. If we begin looking for each other, we 
shall end by each going home in a different direction. It is a golden 
rule, in such cases, to wait quietly at one’s post.” 

Tlie Bohemian submitted, but he did not look quite satisfied. 

“We could call out for the Herr Doctor, at least; he may be close 
by without knowing it.” 

They shouted — first the Bohemian, then Mr. Howard, then Kurt. 
The wood sank back into silence the moment they held their breath. • 
There was not the smallest answering rustle, nor the crackling of 
trodden twigs, to tell them that they had been heard. Gretchen, as 
she sat listening, told herself that there was no cause for anxiety, 
and that presently she should hear the sound of parting branches, 
for which she was so earnestly listening. 

“He may have heard, though he has not answered,” said Mr. 
Howard. “Let us hold our tongues for a little. We might as well 
give him the chance of a halloo.” 

They did hold their tongues. They all remained as motionless as 
though they had been lifeless figures grown into the surroundings 
of the moonlit forest. But Dr. Komers apparently had missed his 
chance, for the answering halloo was not heard. 

At last somebody spoke. It was Toluay. He raised his head and 
asked, 

“Why are we not going home?” 

“But we are waiting for Dr. Komers,” said three voices together. 

“ To be sure;” and Ist van’s head sank down again. 

It was Gretchen who spoke next — 

“Where did you leave Dr. Komers exactly?” 

“ I left him within tliirty paces of the hole.” 

Then silence fell again upon the waiting group. These intervals 
of silence were beginning to be dangerously suggestive. The intent- 
ness with which Gretchen sat listening for the sound of the bushes 
rustling was becoming irksome to herself. The strain grew with 
every second; from irksome it grew to be painful, and from painful 
it became torturing. Not even to herself would she acknowledge 
the creeping fear which, she knew not how, had slunk into her 
heart, anrd which was slowly encircling it with an icy band. She 
would not even look at her brother nor at Mr. Howard, for fear of 
reading in their eyes something which would strengthen the sus- 
picion within her. 

It is not possible to determine at what point exactly a fear of this 
sort becomes alive. Often when we are scarcely yet aware that the 
seed has been sown, the plant is already growing fast. By this time 
they were all persuading themselves that they had not sat waiting 
and listening for so very long, and that there really was no reason 
for avoiding each other’s eyc.^in the way they were unconsciously 
doing. And yet they did avoid a direct look; they stared at the 
bushes, at the tree-trunk, at everything but each other’s faces. And 
so sharpened do our perceptions become in moments of suspense. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


275 


that there was no member of the party who could not have stood a 
close examination as to the exact number of tree-stems within sight, 
or who could not from memory have accurately drawn the outline 
of that clump of bushes to the right. 

That black, bottomless hole was in everybody’s mind, and no one 
had the courage to name it. The silence was unbearable ; yet each 
felt that he would rather not be the first to break it. The first word 
said must be an acknowledgment of their secret fear — and it is the 
acknowledgment which is hardest to make. 

Kurt had thrown away his cigar. The Bohemian’s pipe had gone 
out without his noticing it. Mr. Howard it was who made the first 
movement. He put back his watch into his pocket, and scratched 
his head. Then he got up, looked around, hesitated for a moment, 
and said in a studiously careless voice, 

“I shall just take a cast about.” 

Some such signal they had waited for: they all began moving, as 
if with one accord. 

“ Why, Gretchen, you are looking as white as a ghost,” said Kurt 
to his sister. “We shall have to carry you down the hill, after all. 
Hadn’t you better sit here while we are beating the bushes?” 

Kurt’s tone was meant to be cheerful, but his supreme coolness 
failed him a little just now. 

“But I mean to beat the bushes too,” said Gretchen, bravely. 
“We are sure to find Dr. Komers at once; don’t you think so, Kurt?” 

“Oh, at once — naturally, of course I do,” said Kurt, clearing his 
throat; “only I don’t like to make self-evident remarks. He’ll be 
disporting himself somewhere close at hand, depend upon it; or per- 
haps he has had a moonstroke, you knovv^.” 

The Bohemian made a few steps to follow the party, then turned, 
as if struck with a thought, and picking up the lighted lantern, took 
it with him. 

The wraps and provision - basket were abandoned for a second 
time this evening. But they were not quite abandoned this time, 
for, looking back, Gretchen saw Baron Tolnay sitting where they 
had left him, his head still bowed and his arms folded. It seemed 
as if he were too much exhausted to take part in the search. 

This part of the wood became alive with steps and voices. Ev- 
ery one felt that to make a noise was a relief after the ■silence and 
inaction from which they had just been freed. Frightened bats 
darted overhead, and moths flew out of the bushes around. The 
nio-ht-birds uttered shrill cries of surprise as they winged their way 
towards undisturbed depths of the forest; and the day-birds awoke 
in alarm, wondering if the night were already over. 

The party separated in different directions ; there was no word 
now said about playing at cross-purposes. They took great care in 
separating to inform each other that they were not going to search 
anywhere in jiarticular, only to take a general look around. 

Gretchen did not say much : she waited till the others were dis- 
persed • and when she thought herself unobser\'ed, she crept quietly 
m the direction of Gaura Dracului. She did not ask herself why 


276 


THE WATEliS OF HKKCULES. 


she was going there; but some inward warning was drawing her in 
that direction. She stifled the warning with all the resolution she 
could mujster; but, half against her will, she obeyed it. Above all, 
she would not have liked any one else to guess at the horrible fear 
which had been born within her. She crept softly through the 
bushes, where the rising moon was weaving strange effects. Her 
quick eyes espied the signal at once — the handkerchief tied to the 
branch, just as she had left it. Dr. Komers could not have passed it 
without seeing it ; and this thought for a minute revived her failing 
courage. Then she stepped forward and stood at the edge of the abyss. 

Its aspect was somewhat changed from what it had been half an 
hour ago, for the moon threw a shaft of light right into its depth. 
The traHs of hanging plants seemed to quiver in the flood of silver; 
and the points of rock, the accidents of formation, were much more 
distinctly seen now than they had been seen then. This new distinct- 
ness added to the terror of the place ; it was like scanning the bare 
fangs in the widely opened jaws of some monster of unearthly size. 

Gretchen bent forward, intently staring into the depth; then, 
raising her eyes, she started, for there opposite to her were the figures 
of Mr. Howard and the Bohemian, both leaning forward, and peer- 
ing down, as she had been doing. 

Mr. Howard appeared to be no less surprised at seeing her than 
she felt at seeing him. Before either of them had spoken there ap- 
peared another figure on the scene. It was Kurt. 

What horrible coincidence of idea was this? thought Gretchen, 
with a fresh shudder. There was another half-guilty kart, and then 
everybody began talking at once, doing their best to explain that 
they had come here by the merest chance, and becoming very elo- 
quent about the great facility with which people go astray in woods, 
and often wander about for hours in a circle, thus exhausting their 
own breath and their friends’ patience. Examples were quoted and 
anecdotes told, mazes and labyrinths were talked of ; in fact, every- 
thing which could prolong the conversation w^as laid hold of — for 
they were all as loquacious now as they had before been silent. 
They dreaded the first pause almost more than a little time ago they 
had dreaded the first word. Had not Dr. Komers missed his way 
once already this evening? It was quite natural that he should have 
missed it again. They all knew how short-sighted he was; but even 
in saying it, they recognized that this last argument was one which 
cut both ways. And then, unconsciously narrowing their circle, 
they argued that it would be ridiculous to suppose that a sensible 
man like Dr. Komers — who had, moreover, been instructed as to the 
meaning of the signal — could by any possibility have stumbled over 
the edge. An ignorant person, to hear them talk, would have sup- 
posed Dr. Komers to be possessed of as many eyes as Argus, and 
Gaura Dmcului to be a roadside ditch, into which it would be 
scarcely unpleasant to stumble. It was quite clear that the laAvycr 
must merely have lost his way. And again they took to shouting, 
and to searching the wood around, hoisting up the lantern on a long 
stick and waving it as a beacon-light. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


277 


Their arguments were of the most convincing kind ; and yet, at 
the end of anotlier long half-hour, everybody was again standing 
round the hole, looking down with a fearful question in their eyes 
at the blackness below. Useless scrutiny! That hole is dumb and 
pitiless. It is unchanged, immovable, expressionless as before. No 
good in putting the dread question — Did a man pass this way? Did 
he fall down there — down, down out of sight? Is this the only grave 
he will ever have? The monster will give no answer. Truly those 
who go down there do not come back to tell us any stories. Per- 
haps the ivy-leaves, rustling faintly in this breath of air, are whis- 
pering to each other about what they have seen happen in this last 
hour ; but it is in a language which human ears cannot understand. 
Human beings are so helpless in a case like this. Even that noise- 
less bat, taking a sweep downward into the abyss, and up again into 
the moonlight, knows more than they know. But the bat, like the 
ivy, tells no tales. 

Tolnay gave no help in the search. He was very quiet, and 
apparently apathetic. He showed no disturbance when repeatedly 
questioned as to the exact spot on which he had parted from Dr. 
Komers. His mind had, for the time, sunk into a strangely indif- 
ferent state; and at this moment it had not yet occurred to him 
that suspicion might fasten upon him. This very indifference, per- 
haps, prevented the growth of suspicion. 

It had occurred, nevertheless, to more minds than one. Not to 
the Bohemian’s — he was too simple-minded for such a thought; 
but both upon Kurt and upon Mr. Howard such a possibility had 
dawned — although for the present it had not, in Kurt’s case at least, 
got further than a mere suggestion. It did not seem to bear inves- 
tigation. To begin with, there appeared to be to the eyes of these 
outsiders an utter want of motive ; for neither Kurt nor Mr, How- 
ard had ever suspected the existence of a question of serious rivalry 
between those two men. Neither of them had ever guessed the 
secret of the lawyer’s love, as neither of them had ever doubted the 
success of Tolnay’s suit. Even had they been aware of the law- 
yer’s sentiments, the knowledge would not have helped to solve the 
present dilemma. It might have been worth Istvan’s while to clear 
a dangerous rival out of his way; but this one! The thing was in- 
conceivable — almost as inconceivable to these outsiders as it had at 
first appeared to Istvan himself. Nor had the others ever sought 
a more remote explanation of Istvan’s habit of ridiculing Vincenz 
than the young Hungarian’s somewhat malicious and laughter-lov- 
ing disposition. It was not likely, either, that a man who meant to 
do such a villanous deed would execute it in this strangely conspic- 
uous manner. Istvan’s quietness of demeanor alone was enough to 
make suspicion hesitate. It did not strike his companions that this 
very subdued quiet was in itself unnatural. Mr. Howard, of the 
two, felt the more distrustful. He remembered now that he had 
always disliked Tolnay; and he told himself that the furious tenv 
per of young foreigners in general, and of young Hungarians in 
particular, was well known and indisputable. But the motive? 


278 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


The motive eluded him entirely! An unexpected light was soon 
to fall upon the motive. 

As for Gretchen, her condition was like that of a person fighting 
-with all her failing strength against an enemy who is slowly con- 
quering her, and into whose face she feels a strange reluctance to 
look. If for one moment she pauses in the fight, she knows that 
she will be vanquished ; and after that there will be something she 
shudders to think of— a sharp agony, a dreary blank — something 
she does not perfectly realize, which she scarcely understands, but 
something that she feels will stab her heart within her. 

Already her courage was failing by slow degrees. Soon she 
would have to look that enemy in the face. She saw that the 
Bohemian was silently busied with the piece of rope which he had 
taken off the bundle. He was knotting it round the handle of the 
lantern. It was with a strained and palpitating curiosity that she 
watched him, as on his hands and knees he crept to the edge; and 
when, still silently, he slowly and cautiously lowered the light down 
into the hole, then Gretchen felt a rush of terror at her heart. That 
action seemed like the final acknowledgment of the dreadful thing 
she had feared. The visor had been torn off the face of the enemy, 
and she stared back helpless at him, at his gaunt features and grin- 
ning teeth. This it was she had feared, this she had shrunk from 
confessing, but which now she scarcely dared to doubt. 

The color ebbed slowly from her face; she put out her hand to 
save herself from falling, for a sudden faint feeling had overpow- 
ered her. It w'as to Mr. Howard’s arm that she found herself cling- 
ing, though she scarcely noticed who it was. She was thankful 
only for the steadiness and the strength which supported her in this 
fit of weakness. The violence of reaction had brought on a con- 
vulsive shiver, and as she clung to her support she was talking in 
an excited whisper. 

“Oh, he is not dead! tell me that he is not dead!” she implored, 
trembling. “I am so frightened! I am so wretched!” 

Mr. Howard looked down into the pale upturned face beside him. 
The eyes were imploring him for a word of hope, the lips were 
quivering. She was very young and very impressionable, he told 
himself, and no doubt German girls were more given to hysterics 
than English girls. It was no wonder if this scene had proved too 
much for the fibre of a woman’s nerve. 

“My dear child, I do not know'; we must hope for the best,” he 
said, tenderly almost, for so grim and middle-aged an Englishman. 
But his true thought penetrated all the same when he said, “He 
was your father’s friend, was he not?” 

“He W'as more to me than that!” she said, with a sudden burst 
of tears. She shook from head to foot wdtii the vehemence of her 
sobs. She did not know what she had said, nor to whom she had 
said it. She was half wild with a new' pain which had overpow'- 
ered her, which w'as beating her spirit down to the ground, without 
mercy and without hope. 

She W'as very young and very impressionable, Mr. Howard re- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


279 


peated to himself, and Germans were undeniably given to hysterics. 
But neither youth, nor sensitiveness, nor even hysterics, seemed able 
to account for tlie passionate flow of these tears. Perhaps the mem- 
ory of the somewhat distant time when he had wooed and won 
Lady Blanche helped Mr. Howard to see the truth of this case 
more clearly. 

Certainly he did see the truth, and at the same moment of recog- 
nizing it, it appeared to him that a new and startling flood of light 
was thrown upon the events of the evening. It opened a hitherto 
unsuspected region of possibilities; unfortunately, also, it seemed to 
seal yet more hopelessly the fate of Vincenz Komers. 

All this Mr. Howard rapidly reviewed, even while he was leading 
Gretchen away from the dreaded spot, and forcing her to sit down 
and rest. He was an English gentleman, not only as to the shape 
of his wide-awake and the cut of his coat, but also as to his mind 
and heart. He would not have allowed even her brother, could he 
help it, to see her weeping as she was weeping now. He felt a very 
keen pity for this girl, and a very earnest desire to do something 
towards her consolation; but as he led Gretchen away from the 
spot, his face betrayed far less emotion than it was wont to show at 
the moment of losing a particularly fine salmon -trout. 

His thoughts were actively pursuing the workings of this newly 
discovered motive. Tolnay now stood in a more suspicious light. 
But Mr, Howard was a practical Englishman. He would raise no 
accusation until he had sifted his evidence. The first thing to be 
done was to discover some clew which would support the suspicion 
thus formed. In order to do this he must search carefully. Mr. 
Howard was well acquainted with numberless instances in which 
such small circumstantial evidence as a wisp of straw or the im- 
pression of a boot-nail had clearly established the guilt or innocence 
of the accused. So while the other two were busied in lowering 
down to the hole the lantern whose glimmering rays scarcely at- 
tempted to pierce the black void below, Mr. Howard searched with 
a sort of fierce energy. He went over the ground carefully; he ex- 
amined every step with minute attention, he crawled and scrutinized 
and calculated with dogged perseverance. And he found something. 
It is not necessary here to state what precise clew it was which he 
found. Mr. Howard himself, having found it, could not feel sure 
whether it pointed most towards Tolnay’s guilt or his innocence. 
It was capable of various interpretations, and for the present he 
resolved to betray this clew to no one. When he emerged from the 
bushes he was cautiously wrapping up some small object, and stow- 
ing it away in the depth of his coat-pocket. 

The lantern was standing on the moss again; they had given up 
their attempt. The Bohemian’s gentle face was pale and grave ; he 
had scarcely spoken since the moment of the alarm; he it was who 
had first given up all hope. 

‘ ‘ If the idea were not so absurd, ” said Kurt to his friend, • ‘ I should 
be inclined to think that this business was not a mere accident. I 
suspect that some one might, if he chose, enlighten our ignorance." 


280 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


There was no name mentioned, but Mr. Howard understood the 
allusion perfectly. He looked at Kurt, and seemed to hesitate for 
a moment. 

“Look hero!” he said, “ I understand you quite well; but I have 
a reason for asking you to keep quiet for the present. Do not let 
that man guess that any one suspects him. Will you promise?” 

Kurt looked as much surprised as it was in his nature to be ; but 
he sealed his assent with a nod. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE DAY OF RECKONING. 

“ When the scourge 
Inexorable, and the torturing hour 
Calls us to penance.” — Mii.ton. 

It was past ten o’clock when Gretchen found herself on the home- 
ward way. Mr. Howard had taken command of the party, decreeing 
that the Bohemian should guide Gretchen back, while he and Kurt 
pursued the search as well as they could. Nobody knew exactly 
where Baron Tolnay was, and nobody seemed to care very much. 
He had disappeared during the search; for when for the last time 
they returned to the tree-stem, he was no longer sitting where they 
had left him. It was taken for granted that he had gone home in 
advance. 

In their words they still clung to hope, although there was very 
little hope alive in their hearts. They said aloud that next day 
must bring a solution to the riddle of to-night; but they felt that 
the riddle could have no answer but one. 

Gretchen obeyed Mr. Howard mechanically. She followed the 
glimmer of the Bohemian’s lantern, round which there ever hovered 
a cloud of moths bumping against the hot pane, and dropping to 
the ground with singed wings. Her steps dragged heavil}’’ ; and 
she was crying a little as slie went along, partly from the sheer 
oppression of bodily fatigue, and partly from the wTetchedness 
against which she was too weak to fight. 

That walk in the moonlight through the forest was a thing not to 
be forgotten. She passed by the same trees and bushes, the same 
groups of toadstools, which she had passed in the morning ; but 
they stood now without color and without life— in the moonlight 
they all looked like the ghosts of themselves. Every spot where 
she remembered having exchanged a word with Vincenz Komers 
struck her with a shock of painful recognition. It had borne a 
different meaning then from what it bore now. 

What a glorious day had seemed in the future the day on which 
Gaura Dracului should be discovered! And what a day of misery 
it had become in the present! How short-lived had been the triumph 
of discovery ! how swift the blow which followed ! It was with 


THE WATEES OF HERCULES. 


281 


shuddering recoil that she turned away from the very thought of 
the place. But she could not escape the haunting image. It was 
too near and clear to be suppressed. 

Her fancy was incessantly at work — hovering with feverish per- 
sistence around that spot, and painting the details of that which 
must have been. The step over the edge, the fall, the last wild 
clutch into empty air, the sickening sense of void below ; and 
then — what was that the Bohemian had said of the fallen kids? not 
another sound, everything quiet in a moment. 

Everything quiet in a moment ! Could any length of description 
have brought home the truth with a more cruel clearness? 

And then, with a start and a violent effort of will, she would 
rouse herself and try to shake off these horrid fancies. They were 
but fancies after all — as yet. But her will had no power over her 
unnaturally strained imagination. Again and again she pictured to 
herself the scene ; she harrowed herself with extravagant lUioughts. 
That he should have died this death of all others, this secret and 
fearful death — that it was which was the sharpest pang. In her de- 
spair now she thought that any mode of dying which was not this 
mode might have been borne with resignation. She thought that 
the traveller who breaks his neck over a precipice in the Alps is a 
man not to be -pitied, but to be envied. He can lie dead in the sun- 
shine at least, and his body will be carried home, and wept over by 
his friends, and loving hands will tend the flowers on his grave. 
Even the sailor who is drowned at sea may be washed ashore some 
day, and put to rest in some hallowed ground. While here, there 
is no coming back, no last look, no grave even, accordfng to the 
usage of the world. Oh, it was maddening, distracting! It would 
have been no great wonder if, during this night-walk, Gretchen’s 
mind had given way 'under the pressure of torturing thought, 
which she was helpless to shake from her. 

After a time those thoughts grew so imperious, preying upon her 
with such merciless persistence, that she lost the sense of her sur- 
roundings, and walked on mechanically, following the glimmer of 
that lantern in advance, not knowing how long she had been walk- 
ing thus, nor how much longer she would have to walk before 
reaching home. 

There were countless reproaches pricking her mind through the 
midst of the one great grief. Each cold or unkind word which she 
had ever said to Vincenz Komers came back to her memory now 
with unmerciful distinctness. How heavily they weighed, and how 
hotly they burned 1 

Instinctively she kept her eyes on the lantern, as she followed the 
track downward. Now she noticed that her guide was slackening 
his pace, and then he stopped short altogether. 

“ Go on,” she said, wearily, as she reached him I can not rest here.” 

The words stood still on her lips, for, as she spoke, the man turned 
and held up the lantern between them. It was not the Bohemian. 
Peering at her close, with the light playing full upon his face, Istvan 
Tolnay confronted her. 


282 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


It was like the weird transformation of a nightmare ; and as in a 
nightmare, too, Gretchen felt a cold weight of fear fall on her. 
There was no one else in sight; for Tolnay had taken the lantern 
from the Bohemian and sent him on in advance. 

As she met his eyes, Gretchen recoiled with a feeling of repulsion. 
He was as loathsome to her at this moment as if he had been some 
poisonous reptile which had started up in her path. She gave him 
one quick glance, half terror, half distrust; and then, without a sec- 
ond glance, and without a word, she pursued her way, walking with 
her head erect, and crying no longer now, for some revulsion of 
feeling had dried up the very tears on her cheek. 

She walked hurriedly, but Tolnay kept beside her. In the very 
moment of recognition, when she had turned from him in disgust, 
he had begun to speak low and hurriedly. His words were pressed 
and passionate, his voice shook, and his eyes shone with a wild 
brightness; but Gretchen never looked towards him — she kept her 
gaze fixed straight ahead. 

He told her that he loved her; that he must possess her or die; 
that no joy in this world was to him a joy without her love, and no 
price in the world too high to pay for it. And she walked on the 
while, pale and shivering, with misery in her eyes and scorn on her 
lips, knowing it to be useless to try and stem the current of his burn- 
ing words ; and knowing, too, that there was no escape for her from 
this — for if she attempted to run, he would stand and bar her pas- 
sage. There was in his manner a violence still subdued, but ready 
to break out at a word or a look. For all the scornful pride in her 
bearing, Gretchen was yet trembling in mortal terror. 

“Enough, enough!” she cried at last, as he paused. “This is 
not the time to talk of such things.” 

“This is not the time for silence,” said Istvan, “and I will be 
heard. ” 

“ Oh no! for pity’s sake, no! What sort of man are you to speak 
to me of love in such a moment as this?” 

“ In such a moment as this!” He repeated the words with a jeal- 
ous emphasis, “ Is that man to stand between us always, whether 
alive or dead?” 

“ He is not dead, ” said Gretchen, fiercely. ‘ ‘ What do you mean ?” 

“ I mean that neither man nor ghost shall rob me of you, I mean 
that no wretched German scribbler, for all his caution and all his 
care — ” 

“Stop!” she cried, vehemently. “You shall not say a word 
against him!” 

“Shall I not? But I tell you that I shall. If you put him up 
between you and me, I shall. You called him your friend — ” 

“ He u my friend; I shall call him so a hundred times. There is 
no one whose friendship I am prouder of than his.” 

“ And you say this to me?” 

“To you or to any one.” 

Istvan laid his hand on her arm, standing still on the path, and 
forcing her to stand still also and face him. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


283 


“You loved him,” he said, in a whisper. “I have heard that; b 
that true?” 

She felt the tightening gi’asp of his fingers on her arm, and she 
saw by the light of the lantern the frightful pallor of his face. But 
her terror of a minute ago was vanished. 

“You have heard right. I loved him — oh, with all ray heart!” 
she cried, and burst into passionate sobs. 

She felt no wonder at herself, nor at her own words, for it had 
not been the revelation of a moment which had made her own heart 
clear to her. It had been gradually growing clear during this weari- 
some walk through the forest. She wondered a little at not having 
known it before, at not having known it long ago; everything was 
so simple now and so hopeless. She had found the answer to all 
those questions which had tormented her; but alas! she had found 
them too late ! And yet, through the very blackness of her misery 
there pierced one ray of comfort; he had loved her — he had loved 
no other woman but her; that thought would be precious forever. 

She had drooped her head, having made the confession ; not in 
shame — she felt no shame in proclaiming her love — there was scarce- 
ly a blush on her cheek — it w'as only that for one moment she had 
allowed herself to think of what might have been. She did not see 
the change on Tolnay’s face, but his voice tore her roughly from her 
dreams. 

In the moment when she spoke he had dropped her arm, and now 
his eyes shone dangerously. 

“ You loved him?” he repeated, slowly. “ Then I am glad that I 
did what I have done.” 

“What have you done?” she asked, in a voice so weak and faint 
that it was a wonder he heard it at all. 

Istvan laughed. That laugh froze the blood in her veins. 

“I showed him the way to Gaura Draeului.'* 

“But you left him before you reached it.” 

“Yes.” 

“You gave him exact directions?” 

“ Very exact directions.” 

“You told him of the signal?” 

“I did.” 

“You said a white handkerchief on the branch?” 

“ A white handkerchief on the branch.” 

“And you told him to go to the right?” 

Istvan looked at her for a moment fixedly; he drew one hard, deep 
breath before he answered — 

“ I told him to go to the left." 

In the first instant she did not perhaps realize to the full what it 
meant. It required a momentary look backward, a quick review of 
the spot in her memory, before she could understand the inevitable 
truth. If Vincenz Komers had turned to the left of the signal, he 
must have been lost. There was no possibility of escape, no margin 
left for hope. 

It was very quick, that mental review and conclusion. She had * 


284 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


Stood for a moment fixed and motionless, all her powers of thought 
concentrated upon one point; then she staggered up to a tree, and 
remained there witli her back against it. Tliere was no color in her 
face, and no sound coming from her lips. If she had been a man, 
she would have struck him dowm where he stood; if she had been a 
Sibyl, she would have cursed him; if she had been a heroine of ro- 
mance, she would have upbraided him at least with bitter words : 
but being only a weak girl, she did nothin^ and said nothing. She 
only stood confronting him, white and rigid, with her hands clasped 
convulsively across her breast, with pale lips parted and gray eyes 
dilated. 

The very excess of the feelings which overpowered her took all 
expression, almost all intelligence, from her eyes; stupid and va- 
cant, they stared back into his. There was scarcely a sign of life 
about her, but for the helpless twitching at the corners of her mouth. 
What can we do when our power of expression falls so far short of 
what we would express? Because she could not find words strong 
enough to utter, Gretchen uttered none at all. 

Tolnay stood before her, grinding the heel of his boot deep into 
the moss, and gnawing his under lip fiercely. 

Above her head there was a fiutter of great wings, and an owl 
flapped out into the darkness, crying Uhu — uhu, through the forest. 
That sound roused her; her stiffly clasped hands dropped down, 
and the blood began to mantle faintly in her cheek. A shivering 
cry broke from her lips. Back upon her fancy rushed all those 
fearful pictures which had haunted her before, but this time they 
came as a certainty; and with them came a sense of pity, so aching, 
so keen, as to be almost intolerable. The wild clutch in the air — 
and then everything quiet! She had thought before that she was 
hopeless; she knew now how much she had still hoped a few min- 
utes ago, before this word of certainty had been spoken. 

When she looked up, Tolnay had come two steps nearer to her. 

“You wanted to know what sort of man I am— do you know it 
now? I have told you what I have done; ask yourself why I did 
it. Do you imagine that such love as this can be baffled? Do 3^ou 
think that a man who has not stopped at a crime will stop at any- 
thing less? I have proved my love w’ell— ha, ha! What proofs has 
that German ever given you which could weigh against this one? 
Do you dare now to say that you will not belong to me, and that 
you will not love me?” 

There was a wdld triumph breaking out in his voice; it made 
Gretchen shrink away farther, in unutterable disgust. 

“I never loved you,” she said, trembling; “and now — I hate 
you.” 

“Ha! do you say that? Then call together your friends and 
point to the murderer. Do you hesitate? I shall not hide myself. 
Tell it to the world, if you are so minded. But ” — he came a step 
nearer, and lowered his voice— “what you will not tell them, I 
know, is, that it is you who have made me do it.” 

“I?” cried Gretchen, in stupefied wonder — “ I?” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


285 


“ Yes, you alone. Have you not led me on, step by step, till I 
was madV What have you been doing ail summer but playing 
with me fast and loose?” 

“ It was not play,” said Gretchen, with a sudden qualm. “ I have 
been very foolish, but — ” 

“Foojish !” laughed Istvan, roughly. “You have milder words 
for yourself than for me; you are only foolish, but I am criminal. 
Criminal I may be, but we are partners in crime at least. I claim 
3'our partnership. What have you meant with the smiles you have 
given me? What have you meant with your glances?” 

“Nothing — nothing. Yes, I am guilty; but oh, spare me, Baron 
Tolnay — be merciful!” 

“Have you had mercy with me all this long summer? I shall 
deal to you the same pity that you have dealt to me. ” 

IShe was silenced. Yes, it was all true. She had played with 
him, she had led him on — O God! and was it this that she had led 
him to? Quite dumb she stood before him; her anger even was 
dead within her. It was he now who was the judge, and she the 
sinner. There was not one word which she could say in her de- 
fence. How tell him the truth? How confess that his fortune and 
not himself had been the stake for which she had played? And at 
this moment it seemed to Gretchen’s roughly awakened conscience, 
that of the two Istvan was indeed the lesser criminal; and that if 
the blood of Vincenz Komers cried for vengeance, it was upon her 
head alone that the vengeance must fall. 

The pang of remorseful pain which stabbed her was so sharp 
that she could do nothing but bow her head and suffer it in silence. 
She deserved it, as she deserved each bitter word from Tolnay ’s 
lips. 

And Tolnay did not spare her. Now at least his suppressed ex- 
citement broke out uncontrolled. His reproaches were fierce and 
cutting. He was a changed man altogether from the smooth Baron 
Tolnay of the salon and ball-room. The thin coat of varnish was 
pierced through, and close beneath it there lay the raw nature of a 
savage. His education and his principles were such as enabled him 
to shine very brilliantly in society, but they were not such as could 
restrain him at a moment like this. It was a very bright polish 
which he wore on the surface, but its quality could not stand the 
test of passion. There was rage and bitterness in what he said, 
and yet there was no word which spoke of remorse for the deed 
which had been done. Gretchen might well have wondered, as she 
had wondered often, what element it was which was missing in his 
nature. It was a very simple element indeed. It was only that he 
had no conscience. She had fancied that she saw this more than once 
before, but she had never believed that the want could be as total 
as it was here. Owing to the constitution of his mind, rather than 
to a personal reluctance, he would not have been capable of a pre- 
meditated crime — as little as he would have been capable of a pre- 
meditated act of any sort; but under a momentary influence he was 
capable of anything, and he had been capable of this. 


28G 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


He paused at last in his wild reproaches, and looked for her to 
speak; but she had covered her face with her hands, and stood be- 
fore him immovable and silent. 

“And now your answer — I am waiting for it; what have you to 
say?” 

“Only to beg that you should leave me,” she faltered, Rocking 
up. 

“ Gretchen!” There was a new menace in his voice; the wildness 
was breaking out afresh. “You dare not reject me, Gretchen!” 

“I am guilty — very guilty,” she said, trembling; “but Heaven 
knows I can give you no other answer. ” 

He dashed the lighted lantern to the ground, so that the glass 
shivered and the flame went out. 

‘ ‘ And both heaven and hell know that I have lost my soul for the 
love of you; and neither heaven nor hell shall cheat me of the prize!” 

His excitement was rising; but at this moment he checked him- 
self, for there were sounds in the forest. Both he and Gretchen had 
forgotten how near they were by this time to the more frequented 
paths, and the voices of some wood-cutters returning late from the 
hills struck upon them both with surprise. Gretchen uttered an 
exclamation of relief; Tolnay ground an oath between his teeth. 

“ Let it be for to-day: but we shall speak again— this is not the 
end. We have not done our reckoning yet; this night’s work must 
be complete. Never think that I regret. Were it undone at this 
moment, I should begin it again ; but there is no need — the work is 
well done. You may not be mine, but you can never be his. Is it 
you who are victor, or am I?” 

And without waiting for any word of hers, Istvan turned and 
vanished down the pathway. 

Gretchen sank on her knees, half fainting, by the tree-stem. She 
was not far from home now; but she was so weak that she could 
not stand longer. She was so worn out and sick at heart that she 
sobbed helplessly in the dark. 

Thinking of the man she loved, lying dead and alone, she prayed 
to God at this moment that she might die also. Must he never know 
of her love, nor, of how her heart yearned for one word or one look 
of his? Every ‘detail of his manner and look, once so familiar and 
so despised, became now inestimably precious : she had scarcely 
thought of them until this moment, when that figure was forever 
blotted out from her view. Ah ! was it thus that her life’s romance 
was to end? Was it thus that her love was to be slain? Had he 
died without one word from her? 

Too late! Her chance was past. She knew it, as she crouched 
with her head against the tree-stem. The bats and moths darted 
under the branches; but to her fevered fancy they were not as ordi- 
nary bats and moths. The forest seemed peopled with flitting 
pliantom-shapcs. 

They circled high above her head, and shrieked through the air, 
“ Too late! too late!” and swooping down, they flapped their demon 
wings in her face and moaned— “Too late! too late! too late!” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


287 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

WISDOM AND IGNORANCE. 

“ For reasons not to love him once I sought, 

And wearied all my thought 

To vex myself and liim : I now would give 

My love, could he but live.”— Landou. 

Next day brought no answer to the riddle. 

A search was with 'difficulty organized; heavy payment was nec- 
essary to induce some half dozen of the more enlightened peasants 
of the valley to assist in sounding Oaura Dracului. But the en- 
lightenment of these volunteers was after all but a question of com- 
parison, and its measure proved to be considerably shorter than the 
measure of rope which w’as put into requisition. No man would 
venture beyond a certain depth; and despite hundreds of yards of 
rope and dozens of tir-wood torches, not the smallest trace was ob- 
tained. After several hours of hard labor, the men began to look 
at one another askance, and to murmur that a dead man’s grave 
was not worth a live man’s neck, and that it could matter little to 
the ill-fated German whether his bones were left to rot in the abyss, 
or dragged up to be pompously interred. So, throwing away their 
torches, and shouldering their implements, they marched down-hill 
again, and the devils once more were left in quiet possession. 

^The news of the catastrophe spread quickly in the valley; the last 
of the departing visitors took with them this tale of horror in every 
shape of distorted variety. Qaura Dracului, of which till now no 
one had known the existence, was on everybody’s lips to-day; the 
event was discussed at every house-corner and under every door- 
way. The two lads who were engaged in dusting and stowing 
away for the winter the velvet chairs of the Cursalon enlivened 
each other’s task Avith the latest edition of the story. In the res- 
taurant of the old street, Avhere the printed bill of faro had long 
since dwindled into a short scribbled list — quite a bill of fare en 
neglige — and whpre an almost unbroken quiet reigned in place of 
the once noisy chatter, the landlord enlarged upon the tale to the 
small handful of visitors. The reduced staff of waiters whispered 
to one another about it in their now frequent intervals of leisure. 
The Hercules fountain was more than ever surrounded by loiterers, 
AvJiose gossiping comments mingled Avith the splash of the Avatcr. 
Even the musicians, as they made their last round this morning for 
a fareAA^ell concert, exchanged comments upon the deplorable event. 
The very cliildren, Avho ran races in the deserted arcades which they 


288 


THE WATEllS OF HERCULES. 


had now all to themselves, spoke of the fearful thing which had hap- 
pened in the mountains. 

What heightened the excitement was the existence of suspense, 
for it was understood that there existed still a possibility of hope. 
It was the general run of outsiders before mentioned, those who 
knew least about the circumstances of the case, who most main- 
tained this possibility. People hoped in exact proportion to their 
ignorance ; those who knew least hoped most ; the few who sus- 
pected the truth hoped less; and only the one person who knew it 
had said good-bye to hope. For Gretchen there existed no darkness 
— all was as distinct as daylight. 

When she awoke that morning, after a short spell of exhausted 
sleep, it was with a numb feeling of some great misery, which had 
been deadened for the space of a few hours, and which now w'as 
waiting close at hand to seize upon her afresh. 

As her mind slowly cleared she remembered it all ; her heart 
throbbed in dull pain, and she turned her^ face to the pillow. It 
seemed to her that at that moment her whole life stretched before 
her far into the future — wearisome, useless, and barren of all joy. 

Many times that day did she repeat to herself the words of the 
Roumanian song — 

“ My true love, ate I a hundred herbp, 

Forget thee I could never more.” 

Ah no! Not on any mountain of the earth, not in any valley, not 
on any meadow however green, did there grow the herb Forgetful- 
ness, which had power to give her oblivion. 

She was ill all that day. Her head was burning, and her hands 
were cold as ice. Dr. Funk called it a nervous fever, and wrote a 
prescription of powders, which she took without resistance. As- 
celindc was hysterical and tearful, pacing the room restlesslj’-, and 
relieving her feelings by long outpourings to which no one listened. 
She was not hard-hearted, poor woman; and now that Dr. Komers 
had come to such a tragical end, she appeared to remember that 
after all he had been her family lawyer. She was rather disposed 
to consider it a liberty on the parf of the mountains, or of Gaura 
Dracului, or of fate in general, to have dealt so summarily with a 
man who had conducted for so long the affairs of the Draskocs 
family. 

What Gretchen suffered was quite a different sort of suffering 
from that which Ascelinde suffered, or even Adalbert. For them 
there was the weight of suspense; there was a strained attention, a 
constant listening for every sound, anxious glances from the win- 
dow, nervous starts whenever the door was unexpectedly opened. 
Contrasted with the restlessness of the others, Gretchen’s apathy 
looked like indifference. No sound or exclamation was enough to 
make her raise her head from her arm. It had not been possible 
to keep the truth from Adalbert. He could not look into Gretchen’s 
face and not guess at a misfortune. With the irritation of an in- 
valid he had pressed them with questions, and then they told him 


THE WATERS OE HERCULES. 


280 


Umt Gaura Draciilui was found, but that it would have been better 
if the plaee had remained a secret to them forever. He fainted with 
the excitement; he was too weak to bear the shock; and from the 
moment that he revived fi-om tliat dead faint, he sat listening in his 
chair for the footstep of the man who, as he querulously persisted, 
must still be alive, but whom Gretchen knew to be dead. 

“ Never fear, Gretchen,” he would fretfully exclaim; “ if he does 
not come back this morning, he will come this evening; if he does 
not come to-day, he will come back to-morrow.” 

Every word was a stab to Gretchen ; she could answer only by a 
feeble smile. How she longed for tliis blessed ignorance! How 
she yearned for her former blindness! She alone to be wise, and to 
sit there helpless in l^er terrible wisdom, listening to these words of 
mocking encouragement! She was jealous of her parents’ suspense; 
jealous of every start and glance which betrayed that they still could 
hope. 

As the day wore on the general hope grew fainter. The tidings, 
so hungrily looked for, did not come. The great mass of mountains 
lay peaceful as ever in the sunlight, and the sky above was pale and 
cloudless, innocent as the blue of an infant’s eye. 

Every hour might bring the solution of the riddle, but hour after 
hour trailed by and did not bring it. Even upon Kurt’s good- 
humored and careless face an ever-deepening despondency had set 
its mark. Mr. Howard did not appear again at the hotel. He had 
gone away on sudden business, Kurt said, when he was questioned. 

Thus the first day of suspense came to an end, and the second day 
began. It was an echo of the first; and the third was an echo of 
the second. Imperceptibly the public excitement was losing its 
edge. Hope was abandoned, and the misfortune was beginning to 
be accepted as an accomplished fact. 

Such was the general state of mind; but there was one person 
among the outside public who had arrived at her conclusions in a 
different fashion and at a different pace from the average of people. 
Princess Tryphosa had not forgotten a single word which Istvan 
had spoken on the morning of that scene between them, and the 
conclusion she came to was that the lawyer’s death could only be 
called an accident in the very widest sense of the word. She did 
not reach this stage in the first hour, nor even in the first day. It 
took her the whole first day to recover from the shock of surprise. 
On the second day she said to herself, “Dr. Komers is dead;” and 
on the third day she said, “ Istvan has killed him.” 

It was on this third day, when the sun still shone with the chill 
brilliancy which for so many weeks past had been unbroken, that 
Gretchen formed the resolution of writing to Anna Komers. She 
had scarcely thought of Anna Komers till now, nor of the blow 
which this would bring her. She had been too stunned herself to 
think of others. Now that the thought had once presented itself, it 
had about it a sort of bitter fascination which was not to be resisted. 
It was time that Anna Komers was acquainted with the truth; and 
Gretchen felt a jealous fear lest any one else should break the news 

19 


290 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


— for no one could do it so tenderly as she would do it. She was 
going to extinguish the one light of joy in a lonely woman’s life; 
but she would extinguish it with such loving lingers that even the 
darkness would not be quite dark. It would be like laying a rude 
linger on a raw wound; but with a sort of grim satisfaction, Gret- 
chen felt that she would have the strength to do it. She could no 
longei;sit thus still and inactive; she must do something positive, or 
else this artificial fortitude would give way. Her heart would burst 
if she did not confide her secret to some one; and it was towards 
Anna Komers that she yearned — Ms sister — the meagre, querulous 
woman who had loved Vincenz to idolatry, and for whom Vincenz 
had sacrificed his whole life after having sinned so grievously against 
her. Anna should know now that she had triumphed. Gretchen 
would not spare herself. She would tell her the whole truth, and 
perhaps in the future she might be allowed to devote herself to the 
lonely old maid. 

She wrote her letter sitting alone in the room which was their sit- 
ting-room. It was very still, both inside the house and out. There 
was scarcely a living creature within sight of the windows, and there 
was hardly a sign of life about the short street of the place. 

It was hard to write the words which told the bitter truth : the 
pen made many an unsteady stroke, for Gretchen’s hand was shak- 
ing nervously. 

She drew a long breath when that part of her task was over. Then 
she hesitated for a moment, and her pale cheek flushed. Had she 
the courage to do the second part of her task? Would it not be 
better to bury the secret forever? — barren and useless secret, which 
could bear fruit for no one. 

Her hesitation was short. It was not in her nature to do anything 
by halves; she would have no excuses, no modifications, no wrap- 
ping up of the truth, no patching together of the wrecks of her 
reasoning. Since her theories of life had failed her, she would, in- 
stead of clinging to the surviving fragments, cast their very last 
shred from her ; since she had been too weak to live up to that rep- 
utation which the prix de logiqiie had gained her, she would pro- 
claim her mistake, instead of masking it — she would demolish her 
golden calf as publicly as she had erected it. So only, by a coura- 
geous avowal rather than by timid concealment, could the defeat 
bear a grim triumph of its own. 

In haste, as though afraid that her resolution might waver, Gret- 
chen went on writing. 

“Do you remember the day when we quarrelled, and the words 
that you said to me then? Perhaps you have forgotten them, but I 
have not. I used to boast then that I had no heart : ah, if I had not, 
I could not now be broken-hearted! You said to me then that I 
ought to be thankful for the love of such a man, that perhaps I 
should find out his value some day when it was too late. I want you 
to know that it has come true. I am more thankful for the thought 
that he has loved me than for any other blessing in the v/orld. ;Now 
that he is gone, I have found out that I loved liim— since when, I do 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


291 


not know, nor how it began. His great love, which I so little de- 
served, conquered me at last; but he never guessed it, since I did not 
guess it myself. The thought which weighs most heavily on my 
mind is, that he should have died thinking me still tlie "heartless 
creature that I tried to be. If he could have known that I never 
loved any man but him, and will never love any other; if he could 
know now that I am mourning for him— I should not have that bitter 
remorse in my heart. Twice he asked me to be his wife, and twice 
I refused. His love appeared to me then to be a trifle, or at most a 
burden ; and now I would go on my knees, if any prayers could give 
me back one look of his, or one touch of his hand — one moment only 
to tell him of my penitence. He would not have offered me his love 
a third time — he vowed that he would not do it; and in time he 
would have found out that I am not good enough to be his wife. 
But it is no use thinking of what cannot be now — ” 

The color was burning high in Gretchen’s face long ere she had 
reached this point; but she persevered— she meant to deal unmerci- 
fully with herself. 

She paused for a moment, and passed her hand over her eyes; 
there was a mist of tears obscuring her sight, and one drop had fallen 
on the paper, blotting the fresh ink. Her head was aching wearily. 
The veins in her temples throbbed; there was a dull surging sound 
in her ears. The mist slowly cleared from her eyes, but that surging 
sound continued. It was a sound as of far-off waves washing along 
a coast, or the distant sigh of wind, or the murmur of many voices. 

It was disagreeably persistent, and it was gradually but imper- 
ceptibly swelling. Could this be no more than a nervous fancy? 
The sound no longer seemed to be in her head; it was something 
outside her — something that was not even in the room, but which 
came floating through the window from down there in the valley. 

Gretchen went to the window. The valley lay before her as life- 
less as it had been during all this still afternoon, but not quite as 
silent. That sound was distinctly floating upward; it had detached 
itself from the aching throb of her head. It was individual and 
apart. It was growing less like the sweep of waves and wind, and 
more and more was it becoming like the murmur of many voices. 
And other ears than her own had heard the sounds: for here and 
there a window was flung open and a head was stuck out; a waiter 
with a napkin under his arm came out of the restaurant, and stood 
staring up the valley, though as yet there was nothing to be seen. 
Gretchen remained at the window with the pen still in her hand. 
She saw the empty road, without a living creature in sight ; but that 
murmur of voices was swelling, and she kept her eyes fixed on the 
turn which in another moment must disclose to her the cause. 


292 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE STORY OF A TOADSTOOL. 

Once upon a time there was a little white toadstool, born of the 
damp dews, high up on the branch of a stately forest-tree. It was 
snowy white; and when the moonbeams fell upon it, it looked like 
a white blossom which had grown up there by mistake. But the 
flowers that carpeted the forest scoffed and jeered at it, and said, 

“What good are you to any one? You are not beautiful, you are 
not a flower. We make the forest glorious with our painted bells, 
we gild the green moss, we scent the breeze, we nod from the hunt- 
er’s cap, and sometimes the shepherd makes a nosegay of us for his 
love; but no one will gather you. No peasant even will take the 
trouble to eat you; for there are plenty like you at the foot of the 
trees. You are of no use; you are nothing but a toadstool!” 

And the toadstool sighed, and repeated, humbly, “I know it; lam 
nothing but a toadstool!” 

And summer and winter came and went for many, many years, 
and the toadstool still sat on the branch of the tree, and mourned 
over its melancholy lot. And it grew and grew, and hardened into 
wood, until it became as part of the tree; and as each spring came 
round, and the flowers awoke from their winter sleep, they looked 
up mockingly and began their old jests. 

“What, old toadstool! are you there still?” the white anemones 
cried, and sliook with laughter as they recognized him. 

“He is grown so tough and so hard,” said the spring crocuses, as 
they pointed up at him with their long straight fingers — “so tough 
and so hard that not even a hungry peasant would eat him now.” 

Even the violets, these spoiled children of the spring, nudged each 
other and tittered, as they peeped at the old weather-beaten toad- 
stool. 

“ Old toadstool! old toadstool! are you not yet tired of sitting up 
tliere? Has no one eaten you yet, old toadstool?” 

And the flowers laughed till they shook again, and repeated their 
joke to the breeze, who liked it so well that he went murmuring 
through the forest, “ It is only a toadstool, a useless old toadstool!” 

But one evening when the toadstool was weeping in the moon- 
light, with the dew-drops sparkling all around it, the spirit of the for- 
est passed by and said, 

“ Toadstool, why dost thou weep?” 

And it answered, “ I am weeping because I am only a toadstool ; 
I am no use to any one, and I have grown tough and hard. It 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 293 

would be more merciful if the woodman would take his axe and 
strike me off the tree, to end my useless life.” 

The spirit answered, ‘‘ Toadstool, weep no more. Listen no more 
to the jests of the foolish flowers; let them laugh now and jeer; 
they will yet bow before thee some day. A great honor is in store 
for thee! I have placed thee there on the tree, and let thee grow 
large from year to year, so thou shouldst shine at night like a bea- 
con and save the life of a noble man.” 

Hearing this, the toadstool wept no more. And when spring 
came round again, and the flowers crept out from under their mossy 
coverings, they did not laugh nor jest; the anemones hung their pale 
heads, the crocuses stood agape with wonder, and the violets hid 
their faces in the grass — for the flowers knew that though their 
painted bells might gild the moss and scent the breeze, though some 
fair shepherdess might prize them as a love-token, yet they could 
never save a human life as the tough old toadstool had done. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE POLITICAL SPY. 

“The accident of an accident.”— L ord Tucrrow. 

When Vincenz, in blind confidence, turned, as he had been told, 
sharp to the left, he experienced a violent blow against his face, com- 
ing from a low-hanging branch which he had not perceived. His 
spectacles were struck off, as well as his hat, and it took him some 
minutes before he could disentangle himself from his position. 
Having succeeded, he looked about for his hat and spectacles. The 
hat was close at hand, but the spectacles were not; and the gi’ound 
being in darkness, and he being half blind without his glasses, a long 
and tedious search proved unavailing. He had just come to the con- 
clusion that he must abandon the hope of finding them, when, look- 
ing up, he found himself again close to the tree with the white sig- 
nal on it. The moonlight still struck upon it, and Vincenz put out 
his hand to feel the handkerchief. 

It was no handkerchief, however, his first touch told him; he had 
expected to gi'asp thin folds, instead of which his hand came in con- 
tact with a hard and woody surface. He looked nearer, and felt it 
all over, unable at first to imagine what this enigmatical white ob- 
ject could be. It proved to be a large fungus grown out of the 
wood of the tree, of a shining gray texture, and whitened by the; 
moonlight into the semblance of a dazzling pale flower. Even W 
man less short-sighted and less absent-minded than Vincenz might 
in this deceitful light have taken a fungus for a handkerchief. - 

He had mistaken the signal then, and if the ha,iidkei;cluef were 
not on this tree, it must be on some other tree a few paces’ farther 
on. A few paces farther on sounds a simple matter indeed; but a 


294 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


few paces in which direction? was the question to be decided. 
Having groped about for several minutes on the ground, Vincenz 
had lost all sense of direction. He took his chance now, turning 
the way which seemed to him most likely, but which happened to 
be one of the numerous wrong ways instead of the only right one. 
He went on from tree to tree, examining each trunk, and coming 
upon many more toadstools, but no handkerchief. When he liad 
examined more than half a dozen trees, he came to the conclusion 
that he had turned the wrong way, and again changed his direction. 
More toadstools here, and as little sign of a handkerchief as before. 
The first direction must have been the right one after all, he thought; 
but which way did it now lie? Who could tell him that? Not the 
solemn beech-trees all around, nor the squirrels that were asleep up 
there on the branches. He had been walking more than ten minutes 
now, and he began to confess to himself that he had lost his way. 
It is a confession which no one likes to make, even to himself; and 
in this case the fact was not only highly inconvenient, but might be 
of serious consequences. 

He quickened his pace, trusting more or less to fate ; and when 
Vincenz chose to put out his strength, his long-limbed frame could 
get over the ground at a marvellous pace. He had relinquished his 
examination of the trees now, and, without any special pang of re- 
gret, given up the hope both of the handkerchief and the hole. His 
only thought was to rejoin the others. He walked on faster and 
faster, fancying that he recognized the surroundings now and then, 
and expecting at every turn to come upon the waiting people around 
the fallen tree-trunk. Thus, thanks to his walking powers, Vincenz 
in less than half an hour was entirely out of ear-shot, and getting 
rapidly farther every moment from the point which he wished to 
reach. The trees were all so exactly alike, and Vincenz was so 
helpless without his spectacles, that more than once he was deceived 
into believing himself close to his object. He was sure of it at last 
when all at once a faint glimmer of a light shone out far ahead. He 
might have been mistaken the first time, for the light was uncertain; 
but when it flashed out again, he saw that it was real, and with a 
renewal of hope and an acceleration of pace he walked straight to- 
wards it. He knew that the Bohemian carried a lantern with him, 
in case of their being overtaken by darkness before reaching home, 
as would be the case to day. This certainly must be the light of the 
lantern, for it glowed deep orange in contrast to the white moon- 
light. He could see nothing of the surroundings, nor any moving 
figure, for the circle of light was feeble; he only saw that orange 
speck, and towards it he walked straight and fast. 

Decidedly it was a light kindled by human hands. It grew and 
grew, till it became laro-er even than he expected it to be— larger than 
a lantern. He kept his eyes upon it, not daring to look away; and 
it went on growing and growing, till its size could have furnished 
light enough for at least a dozen lanterns. It was a small smoulder- 
ing fire, as Vincenz saw as he drew nearer, and therefore it was evi- 
dent that this was not the place where he had left his friends. But 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


295 


he did not slacken his pace for all that, for by this time he was be- 
ginning to feel mildly desperate. He was w’eary of walking among 
the trees and seeing nothing but moonlight and shadow. Where 
there was a fire, there must be hands that had kindled it; and the 
same men who had hands to light a tire, might be presumed to pos- 
sess tongues with which they could direct a lost traveller how to 
find the right way. 

Then he lost sight of it, and walked on for a few minutes, seeing 
nothing, when all at once it started up again, close before him this 
time. The orange spot had become a mass of half-burned tirwood, 
still flaming here and there, and sinking lower every instant into the 
bed of gray ashes below. The trees around stood so close as to bar 
the moonlight, and the leaping of the last orange flames lighted up 
the under side of a few branches with vivid touches of yellow. 

The sudden flood of light dazzled Vincenz; he saw nothing but 
the dancing flame, and some very deep shadows round it. The 
shadows were unusually deep— almost definite in their shape, but 
perfectly immovable. 

He walked up close to the fire, kicked one of the outlying embers 
in order to assure himself of its reality, and then recovered from a 
violent stumble. 

Strangely enough, it was over one of the immovable shadows that 
he had stumbled, which appeared to be more substantial than shad- 
ows usually are. At the same time the shadow developed some 
other strange attributes: it started up from a horizontal into a per- 
pendicular position, and in a very unshadowlike manner seized hold 
of the lawyer’s arm. The shadow had a voice too, it seemed, and 
commenced proving the fact by muttering some unintelligible but 
uncomplimentary sounding expletives between its teeth. 

Shadow or no shadow, Vincenz had no idea of being held in this 
unceremonious fashion ; he shook his right arm free, but in the same 
instant of time felt his left arm imprisoned. The shadow on the 
other side of the fire had become alive also, and was unquestionably 
more substantial than the first. The lawyer’s eyes were beginning 
to grow more accustomed to the light, and he now recognized on 
each side of him a man on whose features the firelight fell with 
great distinctness. He could see that the first was gaunt, unshaved, 
hollow-eyed, and repulsively dirty in aspect; and that the second 
man had all these qualities enhanced, and, as it were, enlarged by 
the superior size and strength of his frame. 

At first Vincenz was very much at a loss how to account for their 
existence and conduct; but when, after a few seconds, he was able 
to distinguish their appearance more closely, the truth gradually 
dawned upon him. He began to recall the details of the milkmaid’s 
story, and of the picture which she had drawn of her assailant : 
“half a soldier and half a demon” had been the definition which 
she was reported to have given; and if in the individuals now be- 
fore Vincenz there was nothing which, except by a stretch of imag- 
ination, could be called diabolical, there certainly was something 
which flavored of warfare. They both wore tattered trousers, with 


296 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


a narrow red line down the sides, which gave them a military stamp 
even in the midst of their ruin. Such trousers had been worn by 
the pillager of the milkmaid’s cheese. It was only reasonable to 
suppose that he found himself in presence of the milkmaid’s rob- 
ber, and of a second and smaller edition of the same type. This 
opinion was presently confirmed by the vigor with which they ran- 
sacked his pockets — a proceeding to wdiich he much objected, but 
which, in the face of two long - barrelled pistols, he felt helpless 
to avert. 

Besides the pistols, the taller of the two men possessed a musket; 
and a steel knife, with an elaborately engraved blade, at this mo- 
ment stuck in and out of his trousers just below the knee. In the 
ordinary course of things the knife would have been sheathed in 
the top of his high boot ; but in this case the arrangement was ren- 
dered unfeasible by the fact that the two men did not possess one 
boot between them. The handkerchief, pocket-book, and purse 
of the captive were thrown aside, perhaps for later consideration. 
Some remains of sandwich, however, were seized upon — the men 
tore the stale bread out of each other’s hands and devoured it 
greedily; the flask which Vincenz had carried, and which was 
about half full of spirits, was joyously clutched. 

The examination was over. The smaller man looked at the 
larger, and shook his head ; the larger one returned the look, and 
scratched his head. They consulted together in some unknown 
tongue, either Servian or Roumanian; then put some questions to 
Vincenz, which were, of course, unintelligible. Further dissatis- 
faction. ]S!jamcz—Njamczule” (German), they said to each other. 
Another short consultation, and then it was signified to Vincenz 
that he must take a place by the fire. 

This was exactly what Vincenz desired to do; he was tired and 
chill, and in the midst of the lonely forest this wild fireside looked 
almost like a home. Despite the doubtful security of his position, 
it was with a sigh of heartfelt satisfaction that he let himself down 
on the grass. The robbers placed themselves carefully one on each 
side of him, and then there followed a short interval of silence. 
The two men looked alternately at each other and at their captive. 
The elder scratched his head more than once. It was very evident, 
now that the first excitement had subsided, that the possession of 
their prisoner somewhat embarrassed them. A prisoner who walks 
straight into his captor’s hands is no doubt a valuable prize ; cap- 
tives are as little in the habit of doing so, as roast-pigeons are ac- 
customed to fly into the mouths of the hungry. Such conduct was 
gratifying, the very beau ideal of a captive’s behavior; but now the 
situation was becoming puzzling. What were they to do with him? 
Each man racked the small amount of brains he had in order to 
find a satisfactory answer to the question. During this silence Vin- 
cenz had a fancy that he could hear somewhere in the forest, 
far off, the sound of human voices shouting. He was not sure that 
he heard right, but yet the thought did cross his mind that those 
might be the voices of the party calling to him. He raised his voice 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


297 


upon this chance; but the shout was instantly stifled by a very dirty 
hand, while the unanswerable argument of a loaded pistol forced 
him to hold his tongue. *‘Tasch ! tasch!” (hush, hush!) was hissed 
into his ear from either side. The distant voice soon died off in 
another direction, and was heard no more. 

The two men resumed their position as before, again scratching 
, their heads, and again gazing at their captive. 

Vincenz saw their indecision, and waited patiently for them to 
decide. He made himself very comfortable by the fire in the mean 
time, for the glowing embers were grateful on this chill autumn 
night. Nothing would have been easier than for these two men to 
put an end to him quietly, and hide the traces forever in this dense 
forest. Vincenz fully recognized the force of their position and the 
weakness of his own, but at the same time he saw no immediate 
grounds for alarm. 

In the first moment the robbers had looked formidable enough, 
but alarm had quickly given way to pity. They looked so hungry, 
so ragged, so footsore and weary, that, thinking of the hundred and 
one stories that had been circulated in the Ilercules Baths, and of 
the number of patrols vdio had walked about with fixed bayonets to 
protect the place from surprise, Vincenz could almost have laughed 
aloud. These two starved deserters from the Servian army had kept 
the place in terror for weeks; they were the kernel of truth, stripped 
of its outer shell of exaggeration. Lying on the grass beside them 
was the clean-picked skeleton of some small forest l)ird, and a num- 
ber of barberry branches stripped of their ver}’- last berry. This 
little heap of wrecks was eloquent in its ghastly tale. Vincenz 
wished most heartily that he could conjure to the spot some re- 
mains of cold meat which he remembered having been thrust back 
into the provision basket. He could well imagine how those poor 
sunken e3^es would kindle, had he been in the position to present 
a chicken bone to each man. They were a pitiful sight, poor 
wretches; and yet, by virtue of those long-barrelled pistols, Vincenz 
w’as in their power. It was in a very amateur fashion that they 
now set about the examination of their booty. First they emptied 
the purse, and managed to lose about half the contents in the moss 
while quarrelling over it; then they ransacked the pocket-book, 
under the delusion that it was another sort of purse ; finally, they 
spread out the pocket-handkerchief, turned it over and over in per- 
plexity, but could make nothing of the article. Vincenz watched 
the sacking of his purse with equanimity; but he winced when they 
attacked the pocket-book, for this was the same battered old pocket- 
book which, a year ago, Gretchen had stitched together for him, and 
for the sake of those stitches Vincenz valued it far above every 
other possession. 

While they searched, the two men handed the articles backward 
and forward to each other across their prisoner, consulting at the 
same time as to the great question which weighed on their minds. 
Vincenz did not know what they were saying, but their conversa- 
tion was about as follows: 


298 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


“Ha, Sancu !” said the smaller bandit, who was loquacious in 
speech, and apparently undecided in manner, 

“He, Duman?” answered the larger one, who spoke laconically, 
and looked inflexible. 

“He was hardly worth catching, was he? There is nothing of 
any good except the spirits in that bottle. Let’s have a pull, 
Sancu,” stretching across Vincenz a brown hand stained with re4 
barberry juice. 

“ Wait for your turn, Duman,” says Sancu from behind the flask. 

“Ha, Sancu!” 

“ He, Duman?” 

“What shall we do with him?” 

Upon this Sancu scratched his head repeatedly, and having hand- 
ed the flask across, proceeded dubiously to gnaw his thumb-nail, 
as though expecting to suck wisdom therefrom. 

“Ha, Sancu!” 

“He, Duman?” 

“Shall we let him run?” asked the smaller man, whose heart was 
perhaps softened by the spirits. 

“Let him run? and bring down the soldiers on our backs? A pis- 
tol-shot would be quicker than that;” and Sancu’s fingers played 
with the trigger for a moment. 

Duman, strengthened by another pull at the flask, expressed some 
contemptuous opinions regarding the soldiery of the country. 

“Let them come! Poor fellows, they will walk through the soles 
of their shoes before they get a sight of us.” 

“ True,” said Sancu ; ‘ ‘ they might lose each other, but they would 
not find us,” 

“Ha, ha! it is not every one who knows the muntze (mountains) 
as well as his pocket; ha, Sancu?” 

“ This big Njamczule does not, or he would not be sitting here be- 
tween us now.” 

“ It would be a pity to shoot him, I think; ha, Sancu?” 

“He looks as if he could fight,” said Sancu; and then the flask 
being drained to the last drop, both Sancu and Duman sat still, star- 
ing at their prisoner in some perplexity, and quite as curious to know 
what the issue would be as Vincenz himself. 

A new turn was given to matters now by the introduction of to- 
bacco on the scene. These novices had failed to discover in an in- 
ner pocket of the lawyer’s coat a cigar-case containing two cigars. 
Here was a scope for giving expression to some of the compassion 
which he felt towards his captors. Vincenz forgot his precarious 
position at sight of the absolute beatitude which spread over the two 
haggard faces. “ Tobacco-lovers who have not sniifed the scent of 
the divine herb for weeks past,” was written on both countenances. 
And this was something higher than the pipe of their ordinary lite. 
A cigar had hitherto been a sort of unattainable ideal in the eyes of 
these two men. But the conduct of Sancu and Duman was charac- 
teristically distinct at this supreme moment of their lives. Sancu 
showed his independence and decision by immediately taking up a 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


299 


paper which lay on the grass— one of the papers which had come to 
light in the examination of the booty — and pushing it into the red 
embers to light the cigar. Duman, on the contrary, seemed unable 
to make up his mind thus quickly to exhaust the spell of bliss which 
was contained in these three inches of brown weed. The delight 
was so exquisite that it required to be dwelt upon and drawn out 
to the utmost limits of its tension. lie first gazed at the cigar, 
then smelled it with great enjoyment, then licked it all over, finally 
wrapped it up in the half-burned piece of paper which Sancu had 
thrown aside, and stored it away carefully inside his linen shirt. 
But the process did not end here. The treasure had to be taken 
out at intervals in order that Duman should assure himself of its re- 
ality; there were moments of indecision as to whether he would not 
yield to the temptation of immediate enjoyment, and then another 
wrapping up and another stowing away of the treasure next to his 
skin. Finally a bright thought struck him. If he did not make 
sure of the cigar, it was certain that Sancu would take it from him 
by the right of might. This ended all indecision ; and in another 
moment a second curl of smoke rose up from the lawyer’s right 
side. 

The combined etfects of the spirits and the tobacco were beginning 
to tell upon both men. A more genial frame of mind was stealing 
over the bandits. They began to chant a drinking-song — a monoto- 
nous drawling tune, somewhat nasal in accent, but wild and striking 
amid these surroundings — 

“ Marko, the great Marko, 

Was a warrior strong; 

Ere he went to battle. 

Prank he deep and long. 

Deep drank the great Marko, 

For the wines were good, 

Steeled his arm for battle. 

Made him thirst for blood. 

Brothers ! Marko’s children ! 

This is what I think : 

Would ye tight like Marko, 

First like Marko drink I” 

It died off by degrees; it grew more drawling and more dismal. 
First Duman’s head sank down on his arms; Vincenz thought he 
was asleep, but in the next moment he looked up drowsily. 

“Ila, Sancu!” 

“He, Duman?” 

“We will not shoot him now, will we?” 

Sancu was too far gone to answer with anything but a shake of 
the head. It was evident that the cigars had turned the scale, and 
that for the present at least the lawyer’s life was in no danger. 

They were both asleep, one on each side of him. Vincenz him- 
self felt mildly drowsy. His sensations were of an agreeable sort. 
The position he was in was somewhat ludicrous, if also precarious. 


300 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


This was a new experience of life certainly : it brought with it a 
pleasurable feeling of excitement; it was a refreshing change from 
the drudgery of desk - existence. lie v/ondered what the others 
would think of his disappearance, whether tliey would be anxious. 
It did not occur to him that they would conclude that he had fallen 
a victim to Gaura Dracuhii, especially as he had not seen Oaura 
Dracului himself, and therefore was unable to realize the danger. 
It was very pleasant sitting here; he was stiff and tired with his 
long walk, and felt a disinclination to rise, a drowsy unwillingness 
to move. And yet this was the moment for escape, if ever there 
was one. With an effort he succeeded in rousing himself. 

Sancu was snoring, Duman was breathing as softly as an innocent 
child in its cradle. It was best to leave them when in this Christian 
peacefulness of soul; after a few hours’ sleep they might change 
their minds about shooting him. He thought of disarming them for 
greater safety; but Sancu slept with his pistol in his hand, and Du- 
man slept with his under his body, so that project had to be aban- 
doned. 

Vincenz rose to his feet softly. He had nothing to do but to walk 
away noiselessly; the inexperienced bandits had taken no precau- 
tions to prevent his escape. With a sort of delightful naive confi- 
dence they had left his hands and feet untied. The lawyer stood 
for a moment looking down at them; they neither of them moved. 
He walked away a few steps and looked back ; they still lay immov- 
able. Now he quickened his pace, and paused only when he had 
got to a distance of fifty yards. Everything vras silent. His de- 
parture had been unnoticed then, and he was free. But just now 
some spirit, good or evil, whispered a thought into his ear. He re- 
membered that on the grass beside the sleeping robbers there lay 
that old pocket - book, which was worthless except for those few 
stitches in its battered cover. He had for so long held it precious 
as a treasure that he felt it now impossible to abandon it thus to its 
fate. Was it to be fingered again by the robbers’ dirty fingers, or 
perhaps left to lie and rot in the forest? Were the snails to crawl 
over it, and the spider to use it as a convenient scaffolding for its 
web? Was the winter snow to bury it, and the April rains to melt 
it into pulp? That could never be ; and without giving himself time 
for further reflection, Vincenz had turned and was retracing his 
steps. It -was without exception the most foolish act he had ever 
been guilty of in his life. For a man of his age — a man who, more- 
over, was generally supposed to be a cool-headed lawyer — deliberate- 
ly to risk his life for the sake of a mere memory, was a rashness lit- 
tle short of folly. 

He tried to temper his folly with prudence. When he got within 
a few paces of the sleeping men, he dropped on his knees, and thus 
on all-fours approached the spot where the brigands still lay immov- 
able. He could tlius pass noiselessly over the dry, withered grass, 
which had crackled so obnoxiously under his footsteps. His empty 
purse and the scattered coins lay beside Sancu; but he scarcely saw 
those — he saw only the battered pocket-book on the grass. The law- 


THE WATEKS OF IIEKCULES. 


301 


yer’s hand crept towards it ; his fingers closed over it, and, clutching 
it eagerly, he turned to go the way he had come. 

Perhaps his gesture had been too unguarded, for a dead twig, 
brittle with long dryness, snapped just then. Sancu turned his head 
sleepily, and for one moment Vincenz found himself staring close 
into a pair of startled and only half-awakened eyes. There was an 
oath muttered, and Sancu scrambled to his feet; while Vincenz, not 
w'aiting to see more, had risen also, and was running with all his 
strength and swiftness blindly into the dark forest. How he thanked 
Providence as he sped along for the length of limb with whieli it 
had pleased to bless him ! Behind him there were angry cries and 
the sound of a momentary confusion ; then a pause, and then the 
sharp crack of a pistol-shot. The bullet whistled past him, several 
yards wide of the mark, and Vincenz ran on unhurt. He listened 
for more shots, but nothing followed ; the cries even broke olf . He 
stood still to recover breath. The pocket-book w'as tightly grasped 
in his hand. It was evident that he Avas not being pursued. That 
one shot, discharged in the first flurry of awakening, had been enough 
to salve the brigands’ conscience, and they now stood staring at each 
other, open-mouthed indeed with wonder, but not exhibiting much 
distress. 

“ Ha, Sancu !” said Human. 

“He, Human?” said Sancu. 

“Are you sorry that the Njamez is gone?’' 

“lam glad. Human.” 

No doubt, as they turned over to sleep again on the moss, the 
dreams of these simple robbers will have been all the sweeter for the 
unlooked-for solution of their perplexity. 

There was no need to run now; and Vincenz, slackening his pace, 
groped on in the darkness. How long he walked he did not know; 
he rested at intervals, and went on again, without ever coming upon 
a distinct path. After a time the trees lightened, and then ceased. 
Vincenz found himself walking dowm a steep incline, clothed, as far 
as he could ascertain by this light, in brushwood and fine tufted grass. 
This w\as all as it should be. He had come up-hill to get here, there- 
fore he must necessarily go down-hill to reach the Ilercules Baths. 
Here also there was no path, and the grass was slippery; so, having 
walked some hours, and coming upon a sheltered spot, Vincenz in 
sheer weariness lay down to sleep. It was no use walking on in the 
dark. Hawn would in all likelihood show him the Hercules Baths 
at his feet. 

When he aw’oke, the first streak of dawm was in the sky. The 
thin, cold light of early morning was over the scene before him, but 
it did not show him the Hercules Baths at his feet. This was a wider 
landscape, with a great stretch of sky overhead. It was all a mass 
of undulating forest, thickly grown, and unbroken by those rocky 
points which gave to the Hercules valley its peculiar character of 
beauty. Here, too, there was much beauty, but of a tamer, less rug- 
ged sort. There ^vas but one break in the uniformity of the autumn- 
tinged landscape; and that break consisted of an irregular assembly 


302 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


of what, at this distance, looked like dirty -white mole-hills, inhabited 
apparently hy gigantic moles. What between the mistiness of the 
dawn, and his own ignorance, Vincenz w^as for a time utterly at a 
loss what to make of the mole-hills; and half in curiosity and half in 
hope, he set off towards them, by good-luck hitting anon upon a 
rough cart-track, which ran past the bottom of the hill, and made 
straight for the mysterious, yellow-’white specks. 

He was very cold and very hungry — furiously hungry, as he sud- 
denly became conscious. If he thought now of the cold chicken in 
the provision-basket, it was not for the sake of the robbers, but for 
his own. He was tormented by thirst, too, and there were no signs 
of water in sight. He walked on with the step of a hungry man, 
seeing no sign of life until he had drawn quite close to the mole-hills: 
here a bushy head stuck out of an opening told him that the inhab- 
itants were not moles, but human beings; that the mounds, there- 
fore, were huts, and the whole a village. 

He entered the first hut — or rather descended into it, for it was no 
more than a square, deep hole dug in the ground, with an enclosure 
of plaited rushes cemented with mud, and a flat roof of the same 
construction. Within this enclosure, where, by reason of his stature, 
Vincenz could not attempt to stand upright, there were assembled a 
congregation consisting of one man, two women, several children 
(Vincenz counted five, and there seemed to be as many more indis- 
tinctly visible in corners), a cow, a sheep, and two pigs. He was 
stared at with very evident astonishment, and answered with shakes 
of the head when he tried the experiment of both German and Hun- 
garian. The man who was evidently the master of the house was 
reclining on a flat wooden bench, and smoking, while two women and 
the elder of the children were working by the sweat of their brow. 

The language in which they spoke Vincenz recognized as the same 
used by the peasants of the valley, and therefore Roumanian. When 
he asked for “ apa” (water), the one word of the language which cir- 
cumstances had taught him, he was directed to a wooden cask which 
stood in a corner. "Towards this Vincenz made his way, stumbling 
as he passed over two pigs and several children. He dipped a small 
earthenware pot into the cask, and to his surprise found himself 
drinking a very tolerable white wine. He had not yet learned that 
wine is a commodity more easily obtained than water in this rich 
but somewhat disorganized part of Europe. 

There was nothing further to be got there; and Vincenz, half 
choked by the stifling atmosphere made his way back to the fresh 
air. 

Here a knot of curious peasants had gathered to stare at the 
strange phenomenon of a civilized human being. The whole vil- 
lage street was in a state of ferment, unable to account for the ex- 
istence of this tall, bearded, and pale-faced stranger. 

Vincenz was escorted by a cortege as he made his way oinvard; 
but he had not gone very far when his progress was unexpectedly 
and violently checked. A handful of ruffian-like individuals were 
approaching him up the street. So disreputable was their attire. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


303 


and so unkempt their appearance, that had not a recent and close 
aeipiaintance with the moiintain-robbers assured him of their indi- 
viduality, Vinceuz w'ould have been inclined to consider that these 
were the bandits. Appearances are proverbially deceitful ; far from 
being bandits, it w^as evident, from the respectful demeanor of the 
peasants, that these ragged and barefooted individuals were per- 
sons not merely “dressed in a little brief authority,” but of recog- 
nized standing. As they drew nearer, Vincenz was able to see that 
there existed a certain uniformity about the rags they wore: each 
man had on his head a sheepskin cap, more or less mangy and more 
or less filthy ; and each one also w’^ore at least some remains of what 
had once been a long gray cloak.' 

The peasants made way as they approached; Vincenz found him- 
self in the centre of a circle. They spoke to him in Roumanian, 
and he understood nothing; then one man stepped forw'ard, and in 
Hungarian explained to him that, in case of not being able to give 
a satisfactory reason for his presence, lie was to consider himself 
under arrest. Thanks to the intricacies of the Damianovics cause, 
Vincenz’s acquaintance with the Hungarian language was sufficient 
for the occasion. He inquired the cause of this strange arrest. 

“An unauthorized and suspicious traversing of the frontier,” re- 
plied the least ragged of the ruffian-like men. 

“ Which frontier?” asked Vincenz, bewildered. 

“ The frontier of Roumania.” 

“ This, then, is Roumania?” 

Yes, he w\as told, this was the great and glorious country of Rou- 
raania, w^hich he had dared to invade unsanctioned, but which no 
stranger could invade unpunished. These individuals, some of 
whom w’^ere barefoot, and the best preserved of whom had their 
feet sw^addled in checked woollen rags (the Opinca of the coun- 
try), were nothing less than members of the corps of Dorobanze 
(Frontier Guardians), whose patriotic zeal had risen fifty per cent, 
in this time of war. 

“If you have papers to prove yourself harmless,” said the first 
speaker, sternly, “produce them; if you have none, you are our 
prisoner: follow us!” 

The ruffian-like individual’s speech wms received by the crowd 
with a murmur of applause. The peasants pressed round again to 
see what the stranger would do. 

It w’as a moment of perplexity to Vincenz. He knew himself to 
he perfectly harmless, and in no way endangering the safety of the 
great and glorious Roumanian State, but he wondered how he was 
to prove it. As was his habit at critical junctures, he put up his 
hand to take off his spectacles and rub them; but the movement 
reminded him tliat he had no spectacles on. However, at the same 
time, he remembered that though he had no spectacles he had a 
passport, and that at once would clear the way. Had not Tolnay 
sneeringly observed, in reference to the passport, that Vincenz was 
the only member of the party who could safely pass the frontier of 
Roumania? The thought of that paper was grateful and comfort- 


304 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


ing. In his inmost soul lie blessed Anna’s sisterly anxiety. When 
he had risked so much to recover the pocket-book, he had not thought 
of the papers it contained; but now it seemed as if this piece of 
folly was going to bear salutary fi’uits after all. 

He look out the battered case; he opened it. The passport was 
not in the first flap, it was not in the secofid, not in the third. In 
the fourth there was a paper, but it was not the passport; it was the 
last letter he had received from Anna. With great distinctness Vin- 
cenz now remembered that Sancu and Duman had lit their cigars 
with the fragments of a paper which exactly answered to the de- 
scription of the missing passport. And he himself had presented 
those cigars of his own free-will. Oh irony of fate ! 

Involved in these painful reflections, Vincenz stood in the centre 
of the circle, but was roused speedily out of his train of thought by 
his former interrogator, who calmly possessed himself of the^ letter 
which Vincenz still held, and submitted it to a close examination. 
It was turned over suspiciously, and handed about from man to 
man. Heads were shaken and shoulders shrugged. There was a 
great deal of murmuring and undertone whispering which resulted 
in the question — 

“ What is your name?” 

“Vincenz Komers.” 

“ What profession do you follow?” 

“I am a lawyer.” 

A lawyer! The word was translated and repeated around the 
circle, amid renewed shakes of the head. 

Then came a startling question — 

“Are you a political spy?” 

“ Certainly not,” said Vincenz, with some surprise and a little in- 
dignation. 

“ He says he is not a political spy,” repeated the questioner, turn- 
ing triumphantly to the circle; “ that is very suspicious!” And the 
circle echoed that it was very suspicious indeed. 

“No,” said Vincenz; “I have told you what I am.” 

The triumphant smile on the face of the questioner remained im- 
perturbed, as this time also he translated the answer for the benefit 
of the circle. 

“How did you come here?” 

“On my legs,” Vincenz felt very much inclined to answer; but 
he said, “From the forest.” 

“Aha! of course— a nest of hiding-places. What were you doing 
there?” 

“ I had lost my w^ay.” 

“He had lost his w^ay!” The Dorohanze roared at the simplicity 
of the answer. As if political spies ever lost their way! 

“What is your mission?” asked the chief Dorohanze, rolling his 
eyes at Vincenz, as though meditating where to take his first bfte at 
the victim. 

“ My mission at present,” said Vincenz, losing his temper, “is to 
find my way home.” 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


305 


“ It will be a rather long way,” said the chief Dorohanze, grimly. 

It seemed to be a fundamental principle in such a case as this, 
immediately and unhesitatingly to take for granted that the answer 
given was the exact reverse of the truth. Vineenz having said that 
he was a lawyer and not a political spy on a secret mission, seemed 
to lead to the natural conclusion that he was precisely what he de- 
nied, and that whatever profession he might be connected with, that 
profession would be anything but that of the law. The interrogator 
seemed to be evidently much pleased with himself and with his in- 
genuity — more so still when, to his great delight, and after several 
vain attempts, he succeeded in spelling out the name of Sehleppen- 
heim, from which Anna’s letter was dated. Schleppenheim was a 
German town; this doubled every suspicion. Clearly the man be- 
fore them was a very political spy on a very secret mission. 

In a most unceremonious fashion Vineenz was marshalled through 
the crowd, up the village street, and finally into a wooden cart of 
peculiar construction, to which were harnessed a pair of Biiffels, 
shaggy and diabolical - looking animals, which slowly drew the 
creaking construction up and down the miniature hillocks and val- 
leys of a real Roumanian cart-track. 

This cart did not creak merely as ordinary carts do upon an ordi- 
narily bad road; but being framed entirely of wood, without a nail 
or a morsel of metal about its whole construetion, it groaned and 
swayed and loudly complained, until, after an hour of this experi- 
ence, Vineenz, without much expenditure of imagination, could fan- 
cy himself enduring the tortures of purgatory in the midst of the 
aching lamentations of a host of fellow-sufferers. 

He had been told that his destination was the nearest town; but 
as to his fate he was kept in the dark, and had ample leisure for 
doleful speculations on the possibilities in store for him. The man 
who had spelled out the date of the letter was so enchanted with 
his discovery that he could not part with his treasure, but sat gaz- 
ing enraptured at the paper during the whole of the tedious jour- 
ney. Vineenz, hungry and inexpressibly bored, began to think al- 
most with regret of the hours he had spent in the small brigand 
camp, and to long for the society of Sancu and Duman in place of 
these morose and suspieious men. It had indeed been suggested to 
him, with an eloquent glance directed to his coat-pocket, that in case 
he should feel himself in an especially liberal frame of mind, these 
ardent guardians of the frontier would find it possible to sacrifice a 
little patriotic feeling— that a few silver pieces, in fact, would have 
the effect of reconciling their conseiences with the risk which the 
liberty of such a dangerous individual must necessarily bring to the 
great and glorious country. But alas! Vineenz knew too Tvell that 
his coat-pockets were empty. His memory, which a few minutes 
ago had so distinctly drawn for him the picture of the singed and 
smouldering passport, now -with equal clearness showed him the lit- 
tle heap of scattered coins which lay strewn on the moss of the 
forest. 

The suii was high in tlie sky when the groaning cart drew up at 

20 


30G 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


last; but the lawyer’s troubles had by no means reached their end. 
The so-called “town” proved to be a sandy desert, with some tifty 
houses dropped down upon it, apparently by mistake, each without 
any regard to its neighbor, and standing at every possible and im- 
possible angle to each other, which gave them a surprising and un- 
premeditated look. It was in front of the first of these unpremedi- 
tated houses that Vincenz and his escort had come to a stand-still. 
This was a square, whitewashed construction, in front of which a 
man, with one boot on and with a gun on his shoulder, sauntered up 
and down. From his habit of standing still sometimes, without ap- 
parent cause, and going through some incomprehensible manoeuvre 
with his fire-arm, Vincenz concluded him to be under the impression 
that he was standing sentinel. There was a great deal of miscella- 
neous conversation and good-humored bantering between the senti- 
nel and the men in charge of the supposed political spy. The senti- 
nel was so delighted at some joke of one of his comrades that he 
felt compelled, in a friendly manner, to poke the joker in the ribs 
with the butt-end of his gun. Another man appeared on the scene: 
from the fact of his wearing two boots, Vincenz guessed him to be 
an officer. The cheerful and unprejudiced manner in which this 
man (upon duty) joined in the conversation of his subordinates 
was refreshing to witness, for any one accustomed to European dis- 
cipline. There "was, in fact, no trace of discipline or order any- 
where. 

There was a great deal of talking and shoutings, to make up, 
however. Vincenz again was questioned, and again the reverse of 
wdiat he said was regarded as the true statement. There being no 
proof for the fact of his being a political spy, only made his case 
w^orse. It proved that he was well skilled in his mission, therefore 
all the more dangerous. As result, Vincenz found himself confined 
in a small, narrow room, scrupulously whitewashed, but also scru- 
pulously bare. There was but one window to this place of captivity, 
and that was crossed %with iron bars. Here finally he was left to 
his own meditations, being at irregular intervals, and as it were only 
by accident, supplied with food in the shape of mamaliga — a species 
of porridge made of Indian corn — accompanied, incongruously 
enough, with a liberal supply of well-flavored wine. 

As hour after hour passed, his meditations became gloomy. Up 
to the moment when he had entered that fatal village, there had 
been nothing to complain of. The adventure had been almost 
enjoyable until that point was reached. But now matters were 
changed. He had not been much alarmed at first at the prospect of 
arrest ; it was only now that he began to recognize the disagreeables 
of his position. Arguments and assurances were exhausted; they 
had proved worse than useless. And now, as he sat in his wdiite- 
washed cell, he remembered every word W’hich the Bohemian had 
said on the day when he warned Gretchen against crossing the Bou- 
manian frontier in the valley: “They lock you up, and then some- 
times forget all about you for weeks.” Here was an inspiriting 
pros])CCt! VV^as he going to be overtaken by the same fate as that 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


307 


of the German gentleman whose friends had discovered him only- 
after a month of search? It w'as not likely that the friends in this 
case wmuld be more speedily successful, if indeed they would take 
so much trouble. Vincenz w^as not used to spend much thought 
upon himself ; therefore he had no true conception of the anxiety 
wiiicli his disappearance w^as causing. Least of all did he imagine 
that Gretchen could be made seriously uneasy by the occurrence. 

This day was interminable, but the next day was worse. Nothing 
to do but to pace his cell, or stand staring out by the narrow grat- 
ing, which could only frame one very small picture at a time. 

'fhe one-booted sentinel, the object most frequently within sight, 
w’ould have been ready enough for conversation, but unfortunately 
the linguistic attainments of prisoner and guard did not coincide. 
Sometimes a wooden cart creaked past, either very fast or very slow, 
according to whether it w^as drawn by the clumsy Bilffels or the 
swift-footed small horses of the country. Peasants on the w^ay to 
their fields passed also — usually the w^oman laden to the ears, and 
spinning as she went, while the man tramped behind her, leisurely 
puffing his pipe. It was the vintage season, and sometimes Vincenz 
was reminded of the fact by the monster bunches of purple and 
white grapes which were borne past his prison, strung upon wmoden 
poles, and swinging heavily at each step of the bearers. 

On the evening of the second day he began to wonder how long 
a man could stand this sort of life without committing suicide. 

According to the commencement of the proceedings, there seemed 
to be no rational reason why this confinement, once begun, should 
not continue for months, if not years. This mournful thought was 
in his mind w^hen, on the morning of the third day, he stood peer- 
ing through the iron bars. The dreary round of carts and laden 
peasant-wmmen was beginning over again. An especially creaking 
cart and an especially laden woman had just passed, and Vincenz 
was on the point of turning from his grating, when another figure 
appeared on the scene and immediately arrested his attention. 

It was that of a peasant lad, and something in the cast of his 
clean-cut profile touched a cord of recognition in the lawyer’s mem- 
ory. Unspectacled as he was, he could not quite assure himself 
that he saw right; but surely that profile and that well-knit frame 
were familiar to him? Surely this was the peasant lad Bujor whom 
he had more than once seen at the door of the Mohrs’ apartment, 
perseveringly offering for sale young bears and unfledged vultures 
Avhich nobody bought? 

Almost in the same moment the question was solved ; for just as 
Bujor passed out of the little square of vision, another, and this 
time unmistakable figure, presented itself. If he might have hesi- 
tated as to the Roman profile, there was no possibility of doubt as 
to that wide-awake and the well-cut tweed coat; and if at the sight 
of Bujor he had been conscious of a thrill of hope, Vincenz never 
doubted his rescue when in the second figure he recognized that ob- 
stinate Englishman— Mr. Howard 1 


308 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


CHAPTER XL. 
geetchen’s fortune. 

“ What more ? thon kuow’st perchauce what thing love is Moauis. 

“II n’y a que les morts qui ne revieunent pas.”— Babkrk. 

Gretchen stood at the window and listened : the murmur of 
voices in the valley was swelling. The crowd, heralded by some 
screaming children, came within sight, round the turn of the road. 
A struggling mass of people was pressing round some central ob- 
ject of interest; but of what nature this object might be, Gretchen 
could not distinguish, however much she craned her neck and 
strained her eyes. It was not even easy to determine whether this 
disturbance was a manifestation of joy or of grief. Our sounds of 
woe and of rejoicing sometimes bear a curious resemblance to each 
other: these piercing shrieks might do as good duty for lamentation 
as for glee; this frantic gesticulation was as likely to mean despair 
as triumph. Nothing was evident, except unlimited excitement of 
some sort. 

The small procession came on, always nearer and always growing 
with each step ; waiters from the restaurant, gamins from the road- 
side, and peasants on their way home, joined it as it passed. The 
whole place seemed to have turned out for the occasion; those who 
were not in the street were at the window, curtains were pushed 
aside and panes flung open. But there was one window which re- 
mained closed; there was one man who watched the procession in- 
deed, but who watched it furtively and with lowering brow, scowl- 
ing as he held aside the velvet folds which barred his view. 

As the crowd drew nearer, Gretchen also stepped back ; an un- 
easy suspicion had stolen over her. The horrible idea had suddenly 
crossed her mind that this shrieking mob was a train of mourners, 
and that the object of interest in their centre could be nothing else 
but the body of Vincenz Komers, withdrawn from its deep grave in 
Gaura Dracului. 

“ The devils have given up their victim,” she said to herself; and 
a cold sweat began to break on her brow. She would see his face 
again — see it perhaps disfigured by some cruel mutilation. No, it 
could not be; she never could bear that sight. 

She turned away and paced the room in feverish haste, her teeth 
clinched, her hands tightly clasped, for she was determined to fight 
down this fancy. 

“Ah no,” she said aloud, “the devils do not give up their vic- 
tims; who dies in Oaiira Dracului is buried there. This is non- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


309 


sense; I shall go and ask what the noise is about;” and she moved 
resolutely towards the door. 

Before she reached it, it sprung open, and Mr. Howard stood be- 
fore her. 

“My dear,” he began; but Gretchen had already started back, 
and pressed her hands over her eyes and ears. Her terror was too 
great for her; she wanted to see and hear nothing of the dreadful 
thing she feared. 

“My dear child,” said Mr. Howard in his virilous voice, which 
reached her in spite of herself, “are you strong enough? Are you 
prepared?” 

“Oh no!” cried Gretchen, shuddering. “Leave me, leave me; I 
am not strong enough — I am not prepared 1 for anything more !” 

“But do you know what it is?” asked Mr. Howard in amaze- 
ment. 

“ It is Dr. Koniers. Tell me quick— am I right?” 

“You are right; but — ” 

“ O God, I knew it!” She pressed her fingers more tightly across 
her eyes. ‘ ‘ Oh, Mr. Howard, don’t make me look at him !” 

“But I shall make you look at me,” said Mr. Howard, gently 
taking possession of her hands. “ No, my dear; I see that you are 
not strong enough, that you are not prepared!” 

Gretchen stared at him in amazement; she had expected to see a 
face of ^ave concern, instead of which she found herself gazing 
into a pair of eyes which shone with a triumphant li^ht. 

The grasp with which he held her hands was painful almost in 
its vigor, yet Gretchen did not feel it. She was giddy and confused. 
The murmur of voices seemed to have got into the house, and she 
could hear Ascelinde’s voice among them, and Kurt’s. There waa 
no mistaking it now : those were sounds of joy, not of lamentation. 
And Mr. Howard was still holding her two hands, and there was 
still that light in his eyes. What did it mean? Her heart beat in 
uncontrollable haste. Hope was too dead within her to be called 
to life at a touch; she only felt a sudden incredulous, burning curi- 
osity to know the true cause of that disturbance outside. She 
would have pushed past Mr. Howard had he not held her back, 
and in the next moment they were all in the room. 

They were all in the room. Ascelinde, Kurt, even Adalbert in 
his wheeled chair, and — yes, she was right, it was Dr. Komers; but 
it was Dr. Komers come back from the dead. His beard was some- 
what unkempt, and he was pale and weary, and yet it was unmis- 
takably Vincenz Komers. They all hung about him, all talking at 
once, shaking his hand, and laughing with delight. Only Gretchen 
made no movement towards him, and gave no sign. The sudden 
transition from despair, not merely to hope, but to certainty, was 
more like agony than joy. A drowned man called back to life 
may by comparison pass through some of the inexplicable phases 
of suffering which Gretchen w^as now undergoin^^. She had no 
voice, and neither tears nor laughter. She could not grasp his 
hand as her father vras doing, or hang upon his arm like Kurt. 


310 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


She could only stand and stare at him in blank silence. She could 
not tell him what she felt, for as yet she scarcely felt anything; she 
was not convinced yet whether tliis was real or not. In the midst 
of the tumult her silence was unnoticed by most, and in the tumult 
also it took some time before a clear understanding of this myste- 
rious resurrection dawned upon any person’s mind. 

Mr. Howard’s statement was as follows : On that momentous even- 
ing of the lawyer’s disappearance, after carefully searching every 
inch of ground, he had come upon a strange clew in the shape of a 
shattered pair of spectacles, which he immediately recognized as be- 
longing to Dr. Komers. The first impression which the shattered 
spectacles conveyed to him, and would have conveyed to most men, 
was of a struggle between Komers and Tolnay. It was not at all 
unlikely that Tolnay, in his then state of mind, should have picked 
a quarrel with his rival. His British instinct warned him to keep 
the opinion to himself for the present ; and by the time he found 
himself on the way homeward, and by dint of shifting the pros and 
com of the situation, he ended by abandoning the idea of the strug- 
gle altogether. The position of the spot on which he had found the 
spectacles, led, on maturer consideration, to the belief that the law- 
yer had in reality never been very near tlie hole. A hope was now 
engendered in his mind ; but, true to his principles, Mr. Howard 
maintained silence on this point too. The chances were so nicely 
balanced for both possibilities that he felt it would be unwise, if 
not unmerciful, to awaken in Gretchen’s mind hopes which might 
prove futile. 

Vincenz without his spectacles might much more likely have lost 
his way than Vincenz with his spectacles. Mr. Howard knew that 
the Roumanian frontier was close at hand; he had been reminded 
only that evening that a wrong turn and half an hour’s walk were 
all that was wanted to reach it, and he had not forgotten a word of 
what the Bohemian had said concerning the strict watch of that 
frontier. 

It w\as a chance at least, and, with his natural obstinacy, Mr. How- 
ard followed up the chance. He started, carefully avoiding to take 
a passport with him, but having secured Bujor as a species of guide; 
and for two days he had travelled along the frontier, making in- 
quiries at every village. His determination not to be baffled by the 
absurdity of Roumanian prejudice was strengthened by the recollec- 
tion of Gretchen’s despairing face, and the secret which had escaped 
her unawares. 

By what means he had succeeded in intimidating the Roumanian 
officials of the place into delivering up the lawyer was never dis- 
tinctly known — it was enough that he had succeeded; and Mr. 
Howard, satisfied with the result of his expedition, had onl}^ one 
complaint to make, but that was a bitter one. On entering the 
country the fly-book, which held all his favorite salmon -flies, had 
been confiscated, as containing suspicious and possibly murderous 
implements, by which the safety of the great and glorious Rouma- 
nian nation might very likely be endangered. But even the fate of 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


311 


the salmon-flies lost a little of its weight at sight of the semi-tragical, 
semi-comical gratitude which had shone on the face of the rescued 
lawyer. 

It took a few minutes to make all this clear; and during all the 
time Gretchen stood apart silent and pale, feeling her benumbed 
power of sensation slowly waking back into life. It seemed to her 
a long time that the talking and laughing went on, but it was in re- 
ality only a few minutes. 

She could not stand any longer; she sat down, and discovered, as 
she did so, that she was trembling from head to foot, The talking 
and laughing, the questioning and answering, the exclamations and 
cries, raged on for a time, then lessened and ceased. Adalbert, worn 
out with the excitement, was wheeled from the room ; Ascelinde 
hastened off to order a repast for the famished captive; Kurt’s emo- 
tions demanded a cigar in the open air; and Mr. Howard declared 
that it was an ideal fishing evening, and that he meant to land a trout 
before sunset. 

One by one they all dropped off; and Gretchen, raising her eyes, 
discovered that she and Vincenz Komers were alone in the room. 

He turned towards her with his usual quiet, almost sad smile — 
that smile the recollection of which had tortured her for three long 
days. 

“Will you not tell me that you are glad to see me alive?” he 
asked, a little wistfully; “you have not said a word to me yet.” 

No, she had not said a word to him, she was the only one who 
had not welcomed him back. Even now she had not regained her 
power of speech. Her eyes were hanging upon him, scanning his 
features, as people look at long-lost treasures which they have thought 
never to see again. He was pale and weary-looking, she began"^ to 
recognize now, as she met the gaze of those earnest brown eyes, 
which she had thought never to meet again on this side of the grave. 

He was waiting for her to speak, and she tried to speak. Her 
lips moved, but her voice seemed strangled in her throat. It was 
in a wretched starved little voice that she stammered at last — 

“Yes, I am glad.” 

The word struck upon her ear with a sense of almost ludicrous 
disproportion. Her feeling at the moment was, that if she were to 
pass the rest of her life on her knees thanking Providence for this 
blessing, it would be as nothing in comparison to her gratitude. 
Glad ! That was a word which people used when they talked of a 
lapdog’s fortunate escape, or of a pet canary bird’s recovery. How 
could she use it with regard to the happiness of her life? 

Glad and sorry — those are the words we use: and glad was as lit- 
tle able to express what she felt now, as sorry would have failed to 
describe her feelings of the last terrible days. There was nothing 
in the words he used which could speak of that tremulous feeling of 
joy to which only now her stunned senses were beginning to awake. 

Vincenz heard the little cold speech, and turned away with a sigh 
of disappointment. He had only hoped for some sign of friendly 
sympathy, nothing more. 


312 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


But already Gretchen’s senses were coming back to life. The 
sound of her ov/n voice, and of that pitiable adjective she had used, 
seemed to show her all at once the astonishing depth of her hap- 
piness. 

Very slowly she raised her heavy eyelids. There close to her on 
the table lay that half-finished letter, which need never be finished 
now. There she had been able to express what she felt, though now 
she was so powerless. Despair had given her words, but joy made 
her dumb. Should she destroy the paper? Yes, surel}’’. Her con- 
fession was not wanted now. 

Her fingers were upon the sheet; her breath was coming fast, and 
every moment that rush of tremulous joy was rising higher and grow- 
ing clearer in her heart. 

Slie took the paper, but she did not tear it up; with a sudden im- 
pulse she turned to Vincenz and placed the letter in his hand; then, 
walking to the open window, stood there waiting an eternity— an 
eternity of five minutes. 

Dr. Komers, in some surprise, had taken the paper and was read- 
ing it slowly. It took him a long time to read anything without his 
spectacles, 

Gretchen, standing with her face to the open window, was blind 
to the mountain-range before her, and deaf to every sound in the val- 
ley. Her whole attention was concentrated upon that faint rustle 
of paper behind her. Even the loud voice of the rushing Djernis 
was for her drowned in the tlutter of that paper. She did not re- 
gret what she had done, though she suffered acutely; she had been 
resolved not to spare herself. She did not dare to hope for that 
which she had forfeited; she asked for no more than his forgive- 
ness. He should know that his great love had conquered her at 
last. 

She heard him turn the first page, she heard him turn the second 
page, and then she hid her face in her hands. She knew what was 
written on that third page, and he was reading it now. 

Then came two minutes of the most torturing suspense which 
Gretchen had known in her life. She heard nothing, till at last — at 
last she heard the sound of his voice. 

“Gretchen!” he cried out, and, turning towards him, she saw his 
face as he stood with his arms stretched out towards her. 

“Gretchen, is it to be? — is it to be after all?” 

And now, at sight of the yearning love in his eyes, of the fire of 
happiness in his face— now Gretchen shrank back frightened at the 
thought of what she had done. She drooped her head, and stood 
before him trembling, while a scorching blush flowed upward and 
stained the whiteness of her cheek. 

He came tow-ards her with that fire still in his eyes, and all at 
once the long strain gave way. Her happiness was too great to be 
calmly borne. In her weakness and her excitement she sunk on 
her knees before him, weeping passionate tears, holding his hands 
and kissing them in a transport of ineffable joy, of gratitude, and 
of love. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


313 


And, after all, it was to be. After all her dreams of greatness, 
and in the ^^^ry teeth of the prix de logique^ this was the pass to 
which the ambitious, the mercenary, the calculating Gretchen had 
brought herself. She had tried conscientiously to stifle the poetry 
of her nature ; she had striven to silence her impulsive yearnings, 
to chill the warmth of her generous young heart ; and now she 
tlianked Heaven that she had striven in vain. 

Perhaps she had never so thoroughly deceived others as she had 
completely deceived herself. She certainly had not deceived Vin- 
cenz Komers. Had his lover’s instinct not told him that she was 
other than what she painted herself, such a man could not have 
loved her so long. No two men are ever fascinated by the same 
woman for the self-same reason: the contrast between the poetical 
in her appearance and the prosaic in her speeches, which liad so 
fascinated Istvan Tolnay, would have had no power over Vincenz 
Komers. It was just because he looked deeper, and discerned the 
unreality of this display of realism, that he loved her. It was just 
because she was so illogical with all her logic, so foolish with all 
her wisdom, so ignorant with all her learning, so weak with all her 
strength — it was just because she was not that which she prided 
herself to be that Vincenz loved her. 

And his reward was come at last — his loyalty crowned, his faith 
triumphant. Gretchen herself had defeated herself; for now of her 
own free-will she had surrendered to that love which twice she had 
laughed to scorn. 

This was the way in which Gretchcn’s fortune was made ; this 
was the treasure which Gretchen found, if not in Gaura Dracului^ 
yet certainly by means of Gaura Dracului. 


CHAPTER XLI.. 

THE HOUR AND THE MAN. 

“ Doch mit des Gepchickes Machten 
1st Keiii ew’ger Bund zii flechten, 

Und das Uugliick schreitet scbnell.”— Scuii.r,EE. 

Late that night a solitary bear-hunter sat in the forest with his 
dog. He sat before a roaring fire. A tall tree-stem had been hol- 
lowed out, and flamed upward, scattering sparks and blackening 
slowly at the edges. This is a very different fire from that humble 
ember-pile beside which Sancu and Human had lain encamped ; for 
Istvan Tolnay is king of the valley and of the forest, and he can 
burn as many trees as it pleases him to destroy. 

But there is not much expression of pleasure in the attitude of 
that man who sits silent and sullen on the forest moss. From the 
moment when he had stood behind his curtain, furtively watching 
the triumphant progress of the rival he thought to have slain, there 
had been no peace for him. 


314 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


It was scarcely a relief to And that he was not a murderer. In 
spite of his blasphemous boasts to the contrary, he might not have 
been able to do the act over again; but he was capable of regretting 
that his attempt had been a failure. He had snatched up his long- 
unused gun, and under a double impulse he had plunged into the 
forest thickness. He could not bear to be witness of the happiness 
which he knew to be in store for his rival, and he felt that he must 
free himself from the desperate attempts of that other woman whom 
he had deceived and cast off. 

She had come to his rooms again, she had again wept and up- 
braided him; there was no safety from her despair except in flight. 

“ You told me to wait until Gaura Dmcuhii was found,” she had 
urged upon him with merciless tenacity. “I have waited, and 
Gaura hraciilui is found.” 

As he sat there in brooding silence, with his giin cast idly beside 
him, he was not thinking of the game he had ostensibly come up 
here to hunt. He stared gloomily into the crackling lire, never lift- 
ing his chin from off his hand. Some morbid fascination had 
drawn him to-day away from his usual path, and towards this part 
of the forest which had been the centre of interest during these last 
days. He had thought he would like to see the place again; but 
being once up here, that wish had turned to a repugnance. Though 
he was but a few dozen steps from the spot, he had abandoned his 
intention and had halted. Kindling a Are with the aid of the lad 
who accompanied him, he had sat down here to rest and meditate. 

The forest has not changed its aspect since that night, though 
autumn is creeping on slowly towards winter. Soon the forest will 
be bleak and colorless, its moss buried in winter snow, its trees 
bared to the lash of the bitter November winds. Then the solitude 
will be more sensible even tlian it is now, and the bear alone will 
stalk across the desolate scene, master of the wide forest around. The 
forest has seldom been so beautiful; for, with the colors of autumn, 
it has preserved the fulness of summer. Throughout all the autumn 
the weather has been so still and clear that scarcely a leaf has fallen ; 
but this evening the boughs are rustling, very gently as yet, and now 
and then a colored leaf flutters down, blazes up for a moment, red 
or yellow, in the firelight, and shrivels to ashes as it touches the 
burning tree. 

Tolnay noticed nothing of his surroundings; he sat and stared, 
for how long he did not know— for hours perhaps— at the crack- 
ling flame which was leaping higher and crackling more loudly in 
the softly rising wind. Once a red spark flew towards him and 
alighted bn the moss at his feet. Tolnay watched it absently, as it 
smouldered for a moment, struggled to live, almost succeeded, and 
then died out. The moss was very dry, he thought, as he stared 
back into the Are. He did not think of the spark or of the dry moss 
again, until presently Pasha groAvled beside him, and another figure 
showed itself Avithin the range of firelight. The Bohemian had been 
at work cutting shingles in a farther part of the forest, and being on 
his way homeward his attention had been attracted by the blazing tree. 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


315 


Ilis object in approaching the fire was to offer a respectful warning. 

“Herr Baron,” he timidly began. 

“ Ila!” said Tolnay, with savage impatience. 

“ Herr Baron, I do not think such a tire is safe in such weather.” 

“ Go to the devil,” said Tolnay, sullenly; “I have not asked your 
opinion.” 

“ And the wind is rising, too. Listen!” 

Tolnay raised his head for a moment. There was a distant moan 
of branches slowly swaying, a sort of melancholy whine coming from 
the depth of the forest ; no doubt the wind was rising. He cast a 
glance at the tall burning stem; the sparks were flying faster than 
before. 

“Leave me alone,” he said, irritably; “ I know what I am doing.” 

The tone and look intimidated the Bohemian, but by no means 
satisfied him. He shook his head in his gentle but obstinate man- 
ner, whispered something to the lad who had been nourishing the 
flame with pieces of dry stick which he threw into the hollow of the 
burning trunk, and then withdrew from the scene, though only to a 
little distance. He kept well out of the circle of light where that 
moody hunter sat, but he felt it his duty to watch over the burning 
tree. 

Istvan resumed his meditations. He had forgotten the warning 
almost as soon as it was uttered. Once only Pasha’s uneasy moan- 
ing roused him for a minute. The dog was sitting upright, with 
ears erect, listening to the rising gale as though it had been the howl 
of a pack of hungry wolves. The Roumanian lad, too, was no longer 
feeding the fire, but sat on his heels, staring agape and aghast into 
the black forest. 

“ Look to the fire,” said Istvan. “ Why have you stopped throw- 
ing the sticks?” 

“ He told me not to,” gasped the lad. 

“ Is he your master, or am I?” 

“ But the wind, Domnu!” (master). 

Do as you are told, young hound !” said Istvan, savagely. “ The 
fire must blaze; throw the sticks, else I might be tempted to throw 
in your wretched carcass.” 

Doniiio ferestje !” (so help God!) muttered the boy, hastily fling- 
ing in a handful of dry sticks, but turning pale as he saw the fresh 
blaze. 

Again Istvan sat plunged in sullen silence. He never noticed how 
by slow degrees that melancholy whine in the distance swelled into 
a howl ; nor how beside him the stir of leaves grew to a rustle, and 
the rustle to a sharp continued rush. 

It was after a long interval that the Bohemian stood beside him 
again, and urgently renewed his warning. 

When Istvan looked up this time, he saw that the leaves were no 
longer fluttering singly, but were showering down in dense masses, 
whirled from side to side by the rising wind. They had hung on 
the trees ready to fall at the first breath of air, and now each new 
gust which swept along stripped them off by hundreds and thou- 


31G 


THE WATERS OP HERCULES. 


sands. The branches groaned and creaked, and the wind whistled 
fiercer every instant, rising in strength with a fearful rapidity. 

“ llerr Baron,” urged the Bohemian, desperately, “I implore 3 'OU ; 
it will soon be too late!” 

It was too late already while he spoke, though Istvan, roused at 
length from his reckless apathy, had started to his feet. The trees 
on each side had caught tlie flame and were flaring up high. The 
flying sparks alighted on the ground, and the fire spread greedily 
along the dry moss. 

Though the three men stamped upon the flames at their feet, and 
threw themselves on the ground in the hope of stifling them, it was 
no use ; they broke out on the right just as they had been extin- 
guished on the left. The fire flew along as though fed by a train 
of gunpow'der. Within the space of five minutes, more than ten trees 
w^ere burning ; and whereas it had at first been a question of sup- 
pressing the fire, it had now become a problem of bare escape. The 
storm had risen to a hurricane ; the wind no longer howled, it roared 
through the length and breadth of the forest. The trees comported 
themselves like frantic creatures. They writhed as if in agony: the 
lesser giants bent till they were doubled, like suppliants imploring 
for mercy ; then springing upright, they seemed to rush at one an- 
other with threatening arms tossed on high. 

They rocked and heaved and shrieked, flinging the flame to one an- 
other, and spitting out red sparks, which carried the destruction far- 
ther and ever farther. It seemed as though an army of demons 
had been let loose, and were playing their wild gambols with a fast 
and furious glee. 

It would have been a glorious sight for any one who could have 
dared to watch it; and for some minutes Tolnay did stand, in for- 
getfulness of the danger, revelling in the destruction which suited 
his high-strung mood so w^ell, looking at the leaping fire as though 
it had been a display of fireworks lit for his enjoyment. But the 
flames had all but reached him, and the other men were shouting to 
him that he must fl}'’. 

'' Ileilige Maria of the Winiderhaum at Choteborschwitz 1” the 
Bohemian called in his despair. “ The forest is lost if there comes 
no rain!” 

Istvan turned to escape from the fire, but was pursued and sur- 
rounded by the fiery demons. To any one with a small amount of 
presence of mind, the danger would not even now have been im- 
minent; but, whether from carelessness or from excitement, Istvan 
had made a mistake in his direction— he had placed himself to the 
wdndward of the burning trees. Ilis nerves w^ere overstrained to- 
day, and believing his retreat cut off, his coolness of mind forsook 
him. Instead of forcing his way to the leeward of the fire, he at- 
tempted to escape in front of it. Deafened by the noise of the 
hurricane, blinded by the glare of the flame, and choked by the 
stifling curls of smoke, he pressed onward. The air was thick with 
flying leaves, and hot with sparks which beat against his face. 

It was scarcely possible to stand upright; he clutched on to the 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


317 


tree-stems as he passed for support; he tried to run, not knowing 
wliere he was going, nor wdiere were the other men. His dog, leap- 
ing on him in his distress, bewildered him yet more wuth his terri- 
fied howls. He had lost sight of everything except that yellow 
glare, and he was flying from it for his very life. 

Right through the midst of the hurricane the sound of a voice 
calling pierced to his ears for a moment. He could hear that it 
was a shout of distress, but he could not know that it w^as a warn- 
ing cry which said, 

“Not that way, not that way!” 

All he saw was the dazzling glare, while the cry that might have 
saved him was drowned in the hiss of the wind and the crash of 
the falling trunks. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

THE MISSING KING. 

“Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe, 

A tale of folly and of wasted life.” — M oebis. 

A PANIC struck upon the Hercules Baths. Late at night the cry 
arose— 

“The woods are burning!” 

Though the fire was still far, yet from below in the valley the fly- 
ing sparks could be seen, the unsteady glare against the skj’-, and the 
columns of blacl^smoke rolling hither and thither as they were driven 
by the furious wind. 

Every person who had turned out on the road, attempting to brave 
the hurricane for the sake of his curiosity, stared upward at the 
night sky, arfxiously calculating what were the chances of rain. Rain 
was the only hope, as those who had before witnessed such forest- 
fires knew only too well. When the fire had reached such dimen- 
sions as this, it must rage, either until it w^as satisfied, or until the 
w'eather changed. The dry forests burned like matchwood, and there 
Tvas no reason why they should not burn for da3^s and weeks, if rain 
did not fall. The Hercules Baths themselves were in danger. Some 
wild attempts were made to extinguish the raging element ; every 
man with a pair of strong arms, and a spark of adventure within 
him, forced his way up the hills towards the place of destruction. 
But they might as well have stayed at home and saved their time 
and their breath ; they were as helpless as children in their attempts 
to check those leaping flames which sprung from crag to crag, and 
ran up and down the sides of each wooded ravine they reached in 
their triumphant progress. 

With every hour the excitement of the public mind grew. “ Where 
is the baron?” was murmured at first; and then it was cried aloud, 
“Where is the baron?” 

The panic-stricken people wanted a voice to rc-assure them— a rec- 


318 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


. oguizcd authority round which to rally; and they cried for the baron. 
The extempore firemen rushed upon their operations without method 
and without leader— for the baron was not there. Since the valley 
was in danger, why was the valley king not at his post? 

Next morning broke, and again every one looked upward at the 
sky. It was not blue, as the sky for so many days had been. 
Never had a gray sky been welcomed with such heartfelt gratitude 
as that one was to-day. There was rain in that sky, if it would 
only fall; but the wind hurried the drifting clouds across, and tore 
them to shreds in its fury. The black smoke had drawn nearer 
now — the very air smelled of it ; but the sparks were not seen by 
daylight. 

All day long the clouds hurried past, and the people stood and 
stared from the black smoke to the gray vault above. ' 

Late in the afternoon a man, leading with him a dog, presented 
himself at the Mohrs’ apartments. It was the Bohemian; he had 
come straight from the hills, from the place where the fire was rag- 
ing, and the dog which he led with him was Pasha. All efforts to 
quench the fire had been abandoned, and all hopes were now placed 
in nothing but those gray clouds above. 

The Bohemian’s clothes were singed and torn,^iis hands ■\\TTe 
blackened with soot; he was paler than he had ever been, and his 
blue eyes had a look of terror in them, as if they had gazed on some 
dreadful sight which still pursued him in memory. 

The Bohemian had a ghastly tale to tell ; he shuddered and 
crossed himself as he told it, while the whining Pasha beside him 
uneasily scratched the floor. 

“ He stood like a man in a dream, staring at the flames. I shout- 
ed to him that it was time to fly; and then at last he turned and 
gazed wildly round him, and seeing the blaze on all sides, he must 
have lost his head, for he ran away from us instead of towards us — 
staggering like a drunkard. I tried to follow him; f«r at the mo- 
ment that he turned I remembered that straight the way he was run- 
.ning there lay Gaura Dracului. I struggled after him with all my 
strength, and all the time I kept shouting, ‘ Not that way !— not that 
way !’ I am hoarse to-day with that shouting, but last night in the 
gale I scarcely heard my own voice. For a moment more I caught 
sight of him with his arms round a tree ; but the tree was burning 
already, and it fell with him. I heard the crash, and I saw him van- 
ish. I knew then that I was too late, though I went on shouting in 
despair. 

“I could not even reach the edge of the hole until this morning; 
for very soon it became the centre of the fire. To-day I was there. 
The tree which fell with him made a charred bridge across the place; 
the trunk was smouldering still, and its last sparks threw light down 
the black hole. His dog crouched beside the spot, and growled as I 
came near — the poor beast’s hair is singed off half its back. Of 
Baron Tolnay I saw nothing more.” 

The Bohemian had not yet told his terrible story when there was 
a sound like a gentle tap on the window-pane. It was the first rain- 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


319 


drop, and now the second followed, and the third, and the rain was 
coming down fast and thick. 

The Hercules Baths were saved, and the panic was past. 

The fire had cost thousands of trees, and one human life. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

WIIAT PEOPLE SAID. 

“ Was der rohe Aber^lanbe dem Teufel zur Last legt, das biirdet der halbe 
PhiloGoph dem Schicksal auf.”— 13enzki.-Stei{nai;. 

The summer is over, and the monotonous rain pours down in tor- 
rents. The sky, which for so many weeks had been bright and dis- 
tant, like the vault of a colossal dome, has darkened now, and lowered 
into the vault of a colossal dungeon ; and with eveiy hour it grows 
darker and sinks lower, as though with its weight it would grind the 
earth to powder. 

Damp veils wrap the hill-tops away from sight ; from morning to 
night the rolling mist floats in and out of the gorge above the (Jur- 
salon, like the ghost of the dead summer, returned to haunt the scenes 
of its glory, and to weep over the retreats that once were its own. 

Gaura Dracidui lies once more solitary; but its mask is torn from 
it. Charred trunks are heaped around it; the fringe of creepers has 
been devoured by the flames. Retribution has fallen at last on the 
hypocritical flowerets that helped to hide this danger of the forest. 
It will be long before Gaura Dracidui can build up its screen again 
and weave its veil anew. The aspect of the place is metamorphosed. 
These surviving trees that stand now so still and dripping, can they 
be the same that comported themselves so frantically on the night of 
the fire ? They stare down motionless upon the destruction at their 
feet; they are shedding tears of penance over their late outbreak of 
fury. 

A very few guests still linger at the Hercules Baths. IVIr. Howard 
has gone back to his native country, a litile softened towards for- 
eigners in general — which fact he proved by nominally lending, but 
virtually giving to Kurt the money which is to satisfy Herr Mandel- 
baum. 

“I always thought that young man would prove fatal to my 
purse,” he confided to Lady Blanche Howard on the homeward 
journey. “I said so to myself on the very first occasion when he 
addressed me by the river side.” 

But though softened towards foreigners in general, Mr. Howard 
is implacable towards Roumanian officials in particular, he vows 
that he will get back his salmon-flies, even though he has to go as 
far as the English consul at Bucharest, 

Of the guests who are still here, there is one who will not leave 
the Hercules Baths until he starts on the longest voyage of all. Ad- 


320 


THE WATERS OF liERCULKS. 


albert will die at this place, which for so many years has lived as an 
ideal in his mind. 

Hercules and his waters, for all their power, have been too weak 
to undo the harm of that Ash -Wednesday catastrophe. Once Adal- 
bert, in the prime of his youth, standing at the foot of the beech-tree 
in the world above, had seemed to rival the forest king in vigor and 
in life ; and now they might well rival each other in their ruin— for 
man and tree alike are broken. 

Though Adalbert has not found health in the Hercules valley, 
Gretchen has found happiness there. Her father will die with his 
mind at rest, for he leaves his treasure safe in the hands of an honest 
man. 

That which was a comfort to Adalbert was a blow to Ascelinde. 
For a second time she had to unbuild her ideal Draskocs — for a sec- 
ond time to root up the avenue, pull down the park wall, and turn 
off the waters of her lake. 

One other and heavier blow she had been spared. Vincenz had 
thought it more merciful not to mention to her, that in the course 
of winding up affairs at Draskocs, various papers he had come 
across had denoted with tolerable distinctness that that nine-pointed 
crown which had been the joy and pride of her life did not by any 
existing right belong to the name of Damianovics. It appeared that 
a great-grandfather’s name having borne some resemblance in sound 
to the title in question, had become metamorphosed into count, and 
adorned by a crown, which was in reality fictitious. In those lower 
Danubian provinces on the borders of Hungary, even a title can bo 
appropriated with tolerable impunity. As long as it belongs to no 
one else, a bold or ingenious aspirant is more or less welcome to 
have it, even if it belongs as little to himself as to the others. There 
was nothing to be gained by telling the truth ; so Vincenz kept his 
discovery to himself. He could sec only heartless cruelty in tak- 
ing from Ascelinde the last shadow of her grandeur. What indeed 
would remain of the poor countess were she to be uncrowned ? 

Between Belita and Gretchen there is a coolness which will proba- 
bly last for life. After all the counsels and pains bestowed upon 
wdiat she called “ the education of Gretchen’s mind,” her ingratitude 
was to be regarded as something far sharper than the serpent’s 
tooth. “You have been an impostor,” she wrote, “from beginning 
to end. The prix de logique should have been mine and not yours ; 
but I suspected it all through, for I mistrust your nation. Farewell, 
Margherita! You meant well; but you are a German, and you 
could not escape that commonplace taint of sentimentality against 
which my prophetic spirit so often has warned you.” 

With this one outburst of bitter reproaches the countess’s letters 
ceased; but after a time she softened so far as to send Gretchen a 
fashion-plate with the last “idea” for wedding-dresses, and since 
then the only form of correspondence between them has been an 
occasional Journal de Modes, addressed in Belita’s hand — “To save 
the poor child from becoming too hopelessly dowdy,” as she ex- 
plained to Ludovico. “ Because she has married a man who wears 


THE WATERS OF HERCULES. 


321 


antediluvian boots, it is no reason why she should look like a fright 
herself.” 

Tolnay’s death was much commented on, and the opinions pro- 
nounced were as numerous as various. 

The Bohemian said, with a sad shake of the head, that there is no 
escape from fate, and that when a man’s day and hour have come, 
he must be content to die. 

There were men who said that it had not been an accident at all, 
but a suicide. Had it not been for the account of the Bohemian, as 
eye-witness, tlretchen herself might have believed this version; but 
though her self-confidence was shaken forever — though she had 
learned a bitter lesson — she was at least spared that remorse. 

There Avere w^omen who said that he must have been mad had he 
killed himself for the sake of that German girl with the golden hair 
and the large gray eyes ; and there were others who said that, after 
all, her eyes were not so very large, nor her hair so very golden, and 
that he should have remembered that there are many other comely 
women in the world. “ It is a pity,” they said, “ for he was a good- 
looking man!” 

There was one woman who said that she would go up the mount- 
ains and fling herself after him. Princess Tryphosa meant what 
she said ; but as the idea did not occur to her until she had returned 
to Bucharest, no one was alarmed by the threat. 

The peasants of the valley alone took the catastrophe as the ful- 
filment of an inevitable doom. They bowed lower than ever as 
they passed the stone statue, and whispered to one another that the 
spirits of Oaura Dracului had received the sacrifice which once in 
every hundred years was due to them. 

“ It was sworn on the club of Hercules,” they murmured in awe, 
“and therefore it was to be.” 

Gaura Dracului has indeed been found, but nothing has been 
found beyond the mere spot. The mountains have kept their se- 
crets — perhaps they will keep them forever! 


THE END. 




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